Hi guys! π
Since the Christmas period over here lasts from Christmas Eve all the way to Candlemas, and because I haven’t posted much Christmas music in the song of the day this Christmas season, today, here’s a rendition of this German-Latin Christmas carol, from Moya Brennan, most known as the vocalist of Clannad, who is also Enya’s sister. She sings it in the English-Latin translation though.
What was the last text you sent?
My answer:
Um, lemme have a look, I don’t text people all that often. I use WhatsApp more often normally, but recently I haven’t been messaging a lot with anyone on there either… Oh my, that was ages ago! At least for some people’s standards, I believe. π The last text I sent was to Sofi, on Christmas Eve. And it says: “No, it’s not meant to be I guess, anyway”. It was after the Christmas Eve supper (for those who don’t know here in Poland it’s the supper on Christmas Eve which is the central Christmas meal and the most festive one), and Sofi was watching A Christmas Carol on TV and I went up to my room. After a while I had an impression like Sofi stopped watching it and went to her room as well, so I wanted to invite her over to me to play a bit of BitLife because I was sure she must be bored. So I texted her to come but she was still watching, although indeed she was bored nevertheless so we kept texting each other back and forth as I had nothing else to do at the moment either and she said that she thinks this film is scary. I said it’s weird, because the book isn’t, so I don’t think the film should be scary either. But Sofi said the book is also scary. So that’s why I wrote that it’s not meant to be scary, or so I think. I asked her if it’s because of the ghosts but she said that just generally the feel of it is scary. While I don’t see it this way, and I didn’t watch the film version, I get her, because we both tend to perceive a lot of normal things to be weirdly creepy. Curiously, I was in the theatre as a kid about Sofi’s age on A Christmas Carol, and it did trigger my sensory anxiety, but that was more due to some stuff about the performance rather than the plotline itself being scary. And Sofi generally doesn’t have any major anxiety issues, I guess it’s something to do with some sort of over-perceptiveness if it makes any sense, I don’t know.
So how about you? Oh, and do you think A Christmas Carol is scary? π
Hey people! π
So I was looking for something that would be in line with the current period and that I haven’t yet shared with you, and finally I did find something that I’m quite surprised I didn’t share with you before because I really love this piece, it’s so beautiful. I’m generally surprised that I’ve never shared anything from Anuna on here.
This is not necessarily a Christmas carol or anything like that, but it comes from one of Anuna’s Christmas albums and is like a contemporary Christian hymn, so I thought it still would be very suitable. It was composed and written by Michael Glynn – the musical director and founder of Anuna – and the soloist is Lynn Hilary who also used to be part of quite a popular Irish Celtic group Celtic Woman and has released some solo music as well.
Anuna is a very interesting project, they do choral music that is very much based on Celtic elements but also draws a lot from the Christian choral singing tradition. I am not a huge fan of choral singing but I like what they do.
Here are the lyrics to this song in English:
He comes with the wind
He goes on the waves
He hears my prayer
When I call Him in the darkest moment of the night
Softly, softly, softly
I sleep softly, my Christ
Softly, softly, softly
I sleep softly in Your heart
Naked He stands at the dawn
In the new-born child
He is there at the end
As the soul parts from the body
Softly, softly, softly
I sleep softly, my Christ
Softly, softly, softly
I sleep softly in Your heart
There is no one so full of mercy and love
There is no way to understand Your goodness
You are my teacher and guide
I sleep softly in Your heart
Softly, softly, softly
I sleep softly, my Christ
Softly, softly, softly
I sleep softly in Your heart
It doesn’t seem to be on YouTube, so below are the links to Spotify and Songwhip, and on the latter you can find all the other streaming services where it is available:
Hey people! π
It’s only Christmas Eve today, but here in Poland Christmas Eve is the most festive day of Christmas – a little absurdly maybe – so to me it feels more natural to wish people merry Christmas today, rather than only tomorrow.
So, I’d like to wish you a very happy, joyful and cosy Christmas. I hope that it won’t be difficult for those of you who are particularly affected by Covid this year, and that you will still have someone to spend this Christmas with, albeit it may be less people than usual, I hope you won’t be feeling lonely. I wish you lots of inner peace and joy for this time, whether you actually believe in the whole thing for Christmas and it has any special meaning for you, or it’s just a fun festive time for you. I also hope that you get to eat lots of yummy food and enjoy other pleasures of this time.
If you don’t celebrate Christmas or celebrate something else instead at a similar time, of course I hope you have great holidays or just a pleasant, chill time.
Misha is wishing all the best to your pets as well and lots of nice presents. π
Okay, so time for today’s song of the day now. Since it’s Christmas Eve, this will be a Christmas song, obviously, one from a lovely English folk singer and fiddler Jackie Oates – a beautiful lullaby carol. – Such Christmas carols which are at the same time lullabies are my favourites.
This one is called “The Worthy Wood Carol” and, according to Jackie’s own website, was written by an Exmoor gypsy in the 1920’s. I hope you like it. π
Today, I’d like to write some a bit longer post inspired by a journaling prompt again, as I haven’t done that in a while. It probably won’t be too long or indepth, but I think it’ll be nice to do and also fill y’all in a bit on what’s going on for me. The prompt I chose to inspire myself with is from Listify by Marina Greenway and goes like this:
Β Β Lately, I’ve been feeling… Your state of mind changes over time and through the seasons. Record how you are feeling right now. What is going through your mind? Are you responding emotionally to something that has happened earlier in the week? Are you anticipating your day in a positive or negative way? What does your general state of being feel like? Do this every so often to chronicle your journey.
I typically write in my journal and/or on here about how I’m feeling in a more prosaic form, and I don’t think doing a list will become my typical way of doing it, but I think it could be fun once in a while. So here is my list.
And I think that’s it. My day, apart from the migraine earlier, has been okayish, and it’s now coming to an end, so I’m not really anticipating anything today except for hoping for a decent night’s sleep. And my state of being feels a bit sluggish, a bit jumpy, but overall rather neutral at the moment.
How are you feeling? Do let me know. π
It’s Advent, so time for some Christmassy music. I picked something new and that came out just this year, a couple weeks ago I guess, from two artists I know because I used to listen to them a lot in my new age-y phase so to put it. They are David and Diane Arkenstone, a couple who do a sort of fusion between new age and world music, but as far as I’m aware they have also composed music for quite a few games and appear to be mostly known for that. However especially Diane is very diverse in her musical interests. She has an educational background in opera singing, but has also tried doing heavy metal and some other genres which are totally different from what she’s doing now. I was never a huge fan of their music, but they do have some nice music that I liked listening to. Now I do it a lot less though as their music simply doesn’t really speak to me anymore. I really liked this interpretation of the traditional carol however. I have no idea what or who Ah*nee*mah is, but because both Diane and David are very fruitful musicians and have created or collaborated in a lot of different new age musical projects, I suppose that might be just the name of one of them.
Hi all you lovely people you! π
Phew, it’s been quite an intense week! I know it’s super late compared to last year and am very sorry for that, but finally, it’s time to reveal this year’s winners of
My Inner Mishmash Readership Award!
My Inner Mishmash Readership Award (or MIMRA for short) is an idea that I came up with last year, where each year, around Christmas, I award three of my
most involved, insightful and engaged readers of My Inner MishMash as a way of expressing my gratitude and appreciation for their presence on My Inner MishMash, and also simply as a way to have some more fun on here for all of us, pre Christmas. Of course I do appreciate every single reader of my blog and am so happy for all of you who are stopping by, but quite obviously I can’t award everyone who visits my blog, so in a way this is also a more symbolic way of appreciating all of my readers.
So, without further ado, I am exxxtremely exxxcited to announce that the winners of this year’s My Inner Mishmash Readership Award are… *applause, drumrolls, fanfares, confetti etc.*
Meg of Where Good Advice Happens,
(and this is her second MIMRA)
Ashley Leia of Mental Health @ Home
(and this is her second MIMRA as well)
and
Astrid and her whole system Astridetal of A Multitude of Musings
.
Meg and Ashley are literally as lucky as they can be, because you can only win MIMRA twice in a row! Although Sofi is trying to convince me that it should be thrice, so… I don’t know… we’ll see next year I guess. But you can lemme know what you think of this idea if you want.
Thank you so very much to all of you, the winners, for being such engaged readers of My Inner Mishmash, such great supporters of Misha and me and such cool people overall! And thank you to all of my regular readers for all their extremely valuable input! π And HUGE thanks to my Mum for helping me with this whole thing, brainstorming ideas with me, designing the cards etc. because it just wouldn’t work out without her! π Last, but by no means least, thanks to Sofi, thanks to whom there are some pics with this post that you can enjoy. Sofi has made some of them and then today has helped me a lot with selecting the photos for this post and captioning them. After she captioned them, somehow I lost or couldn’t find her very descriptive captions after transferring the photos
This MIMRA has just been sent out and I had no clue which photo was which and got really annoyed and was about to give up on the whole photo thing, but eventually Sofi helped me once again change their names to something more descriptive than img0185 so that I knew what I was posting, lol, and do alt texts properly. All that despite she’s having a really awful day today because she’s sick.
I sincerely hope it’ll arrive to people at least very shortly before Christmas, but since I sent it out almost a whole month later than I did last year (guess I’ll have to start the preparations in August rather than in September next year π ) because of the delay with the cards company and some things that have been going on for me personally as well as for my Mum, and since the mail in many countries is overloaded due to Covid and people ordering a lot of stuff online, at least from what I’ve been hearing, it’s possible that, if that’s the case with the mail in your country, you may need to wait for your MIMRA a bit longer than that. Even without such complications, I remember that last year’s MIMRA for Meg was going very slow, but that’s probably because our mail here always tends to be slow with foreign mail for some reasoon, at least in my experience. π
As a compensation, the MIMRA packages this year have a bit more content than the year before, but to be honest it wasn’t really even planned. Here are some pics (but with the MIMRA boxes closed, so you can’t take a peek in this year, ha, ha, more details about the content later)
And here’s a little bonus for all of you who like to look at Misha and often ask me about his pics, just because I had one more at hand and because it’s a special, exceptional day when images are being posted on this blog, lol, though it’s unrelated to the award itself.
I won’t be telling you what’s exactly in the MIMRAs, I myself am not a huge enthusiast of surprises but I figure most people do like them, but to give you a bit of an idea, there are some Polish edible goodies in there. My goal with MIMRA is to introduce people to new, yummy things that are only a thing in Poland, because I think it’s fun to see how each country has its own candy and stuff. And we generally have a lot of yummy food here. Only it’s so universalised these days (plus I myself haven’t been abroad much which may be an important factor here as well) that sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s Polish and what’s just somehow adapted or something. Last year’s MIMRA winners may remember that one of the things in the award package were biscuits with chocolate and jelly which are called Delicje over here. I was absolutely convinced they are a Polish thing, until last year’s MIMRA winner
Carol Anne of Therapy Bits, and some of the littles in her system,
enlightened me that they are also in Ireland, under the name of Jaffa Cakes, and they do appear to be in many other countries as well! So this year I did a bit more research and hopefully these things are actually exclusively Polish, or at least you haven’t tried them before, but even more importantly that you will like them. However Meg told me that she really enjoyed these Jaffa Cakes and she can’t get them anywhere and would like them in the MIMRA again. I originally didn’t plan it to be so, but because I found something that I thought could be a fun thing for Ashley and Astrid but maybe not necessarily for Meg, she did get a package of them eventually. Ashley and Astrid have something else instead. I’ll just say that it’s something to have a bath with, and I remembered that Meg can’t have baths with such bath products so I think it’s fair enough.
I hope you guys will like your MIMRAs and enjoy them at least as much as I did making them, and that they’ll bring some happiness to you for the Christmas time. π
Christmas has come, and with it, FINALLY! the third MIMRA – for Meg! – I’m so happy that all the packages are now with the winners. It was real fun and exciting to make it and make them happy and I’ll be extremely to make the second edition of MIMRA next year.
Hiya people, and pets, and everyone in between! π
Just a short note to let you know that my new computer has arrived on Friday and since then I was very busy setting it up (with tremendous help from Olek without which I’d be completely lost), and I’m still very slowly catching up on everything and even slower getting used to all the novelty and change, which is not always only positive, although it’s definitely much better to have a new computer than not to have any. It’s been causing me a lot of distress and anxiety, resulting in excessive nail biting thanks to which I’ve apparently got something called paronychia – an annoingly sore, swollen and throbbing finger – but it’s slowly and gradually getting better, I mean the anxiety. It will probably take some time before I’ll write some more concrete posts.
But most of all, me and Misha would like to wish all of you a very happy happy Christmas. I hope it will be a very wonderful and joyful time for you during which you can do lots of cool things, spend quality time with your family, or perhaps recharge and have time just for yourselves. I hope Christmas will fill your hearts with joy and hope and make you feel that your life is meaningful. π Misha says he wishes you lots of delicious food and relaxation time and hopes it will be the cosiest Christmas ever for you. π
I also want to thank all those of you who read my blog and who were emailing me when I was away from the blogosphere, I appreciate it so very much and it’s been a huge help for me to get through that, you’re all really great friends! π If I didn’t get back to someone it’s either because my Braille-Sense was freezing or didn’t display it.
Hi people! π
Perhaps you remember that I was sharing a lot of Enya’s music last year around Christmas with you. I was sure I must have shared this song, but looks like I haven’t, so I think it’s the right time to do it now, since this is primarily an Advent hymn! And I think in Enya’s version it sounds so extremely beautiful. Both full of some silent, secret euphoria, as well as nostalgia. I hope you like it too. π
Hi guys! π
So it’s Advent, and Christmas is coming, so we can listen to our favourite Christmas music again! This is one of my personal absolute winter classics. And Jack Frost is one of my favourite characters in European folklore. He has arrived here for good as it seems, so I am welcoming his with this lovely little song, hoping you will like it too. Kate Rusby is also one of my most favourite English folk singers, she’s really amazing! I love her voice and her accent, most people who know her seem to love her accent haha, and she does this song so very well. It just makes my brain melt. π
Hi people! π
I’m so excited to let you all know that My Inner Mishmash Readership Awards have already arrived to two of the winners – Carol Anne and her system of
and Ashley Leia of
yay!!! π π
I’m really glad with how well this went, and so very happy that I could show them my appreciation as a blogger for how insightful readers they are, and that they both are enjoying their MIMRAs. πΒ Β Β They have both kindly shared their impressions (thanks so much for that π ), so I’m sharing them so that all of you can know what was in the packages. π
Here is
Ashley’s post, with her and her guinea pig Casper opening their package
and Carol Anne and Taylor’s video is below. π
just so that everyone knows, the candles are with shea butter, which can be poured into a bath or used for a massage. I used to have one like those years ago and loved it. And it is cool as even when you use up the shea butter it’s still practical and you can use it for something else.
Hi people. π
When do you start Christmas shopping?
My answer:
Not very early, usually. We’re generally quite late with all the Christmas stuff, and hardly do anything before Advent, which usually means we start everything off around mid December haha. When I do Christmas shopping, it’s just presents and I prefer to have that done earlier so I don’t have to stress what I should get for everyone and whether I’ll be able to. So last year I think I was done with my shopping a week into December. This year everything seems to be happening much faster, we are already listening to Christmas music, Mum has made most of the pierogi which makes me and my siblings feel like all that waiting is completely unnecessary and we could have the Christmas Eve supper already. π And there has been My Inner Mishmash Readership Award which is sort of linked with Christmas so I feel more Christmassy than I usually do around this time of year. Apart from the award stuff though, I haven’t done any shopping and I don’t have any present ideas for people, I guess I’m a bit burnt out from thinking about MIMRA and what to do for it for almost 3 months. π
How about your Christmas shopping? π
What is the oddest thing you’ve heard of someone eating for Christmas?
My answer:
I’m quite familiar with many things people eat for Christmas in different countries as well as different regions of Poland but many feel a bit odd to me. My most recent odd discovery was that people – my family to be exact! – eat fruit soup for Christmas! Or rather Christmas Eve since it’s on Christmas Eve that we have a big Christmas meal here in Poland. Fruit soup has never been a tradition in our family, the only few times I’ve had it was at other people’s, but it seems like my extended family have embraced it. I’ve never heard of it being a Christmas dish! Dried fruit kompot – yes – but fruit soup was absolutely a novelty to me, I’ve always associated it more with summer since it’s a cooler soup. My Mum actually hates fruit soup, I have nothing against it although I do think it is a bit weird.
What’s such oddest thing in your opinion? π
Hey people. π
Let’s continue with some early Christmas questions, shall we? π
What’s your favourite kind of Christmas decoration (tree, lights, garlands etc.)?
My answer:
I’m not sure I have a favourite. if anything, I often find Christmas decorations a little bit annoying especially if people put them so that they get in your way or something, sometimes getting around where there are many decorations can be a bit tricky. If I’d have to choose anything I’d go with Christmas tree, especially a natural one. I don’t have the best sense of smell at all but when I can feel the smell of Christmas tree I think it’s beautiful. I could also say baubles just because I like the feel of glass.
You? π
What is your favourite Christmas song? Your least favourite?
My answer:
I have many favourites which make me await December every year so that I can listen to them, I don’t listen to them all year, only since the beginning of December to February 2nd when Christmas carols singing time ends over here, so I’m never bored with them. But I think my most favourite is “Christmas Secrets” by Enya, that I have previously shared. It’s really magical. Least favourite? I find most of the mainstream Christmas music that you hear in the shops, in the radio and such kind of infantile, annoying, superficial, boring and just meh. But… wait a minute… there was such a classic that I hate but I don’t remember/know the title, let me look it up… uhhh, yeah, “Merry Christmas Everybody” by Slade. The harmony of this song, something in its melody makes my brain feel uneasy, there just are such songs, sounds, sequences of sounds, melodies, and this song is one of them. It’s the chorus I have problems with the most when I happen to hear it. It’s such a strange feeling and even more strange to describe, it’s like what you’re hearing is one big dissonance in a way (not aesthetic usually or not necessarily, it’s a different kind of a dissonance) plus your mind vs that song/sound don’t get along. It can make me feel that some sounds and/or harmonies are aggressive, kind of evil in a way, and that it’s directed straight at me, directly, it just makes me feel uneasy emotionally and in a way physically and often anxious. I just wonder why the heck people don’t hear such things, I’m not even saying about that they don’t react like I do but they don’t even hear anything wrong, when I show people two songs that trigger sensory anxiety for me they don’t see anything in common in the sound or in their perception of the songs. It makes me feel crazy! It’s far from being among those the most triggering sounds I’ve come across in my life but it’s just unpleasant to hear. And “Gothic Christmas” by Within Temptation is horrible, but just because of what it’s like, not because of the harmonies and all those intricacies, I’m not sure which I hate more, I guess each deserves an award in its own category. π
What is your favourite Christmas dish? Your least favourite?
My answer:
My most favourite are definitely pierogi with cabbage and mushrooms, especially the way my Mum makes them, with fresh cabbage. For me there’s no Christmas without pierogi, and the same for my siblings. Mum has actually already started making them today, very early as for her. My least favourite would be probably some fish. I find carp a very overrated Polish Christmas dish, but I guess herring (no matter how its served) is even worse.
What are yours? π
Say you suddenly have 1000 euro/dollars/pounds/zlotys/whatever the currency is in your country. What do you spend it on?
My answer:
Okay, so in Poland we have zlotys. 1000 zlotys is around 230 euro I suppose, not sure how much it is in dollars. I think I’d mostly use it for Christmas presents for my family, and some stuff for myself as well for that occasion. I’m not sure yet what I’m going to get my family for Christmas, so I don’t know how much of it I’d spend, but I need to buy myself new headphones and I’d like to get some really fancy ones, so I could use the rest to help me with that.
So, how about you? π
Hi people! π
So, the time has come. The time to reveal the winners of my brand new conception which is My Inner MishMash Readership Award (or MIMRA).
My Inner MishMash is an award that is planned to be confered every year before Christmas, to the three most involved, insightful and engaged readers of My Inner MishMash as a way of expressing my gratitude and appreciation for their presence on My Inner MishMash, and also simply as a way to have some more fun on here.
I’m super excited to officially announce to all the people reading this blog that this year’s winners are… *fanfares and drumrolls*
Meg of Why Does Bad Advice Happen to Good People,
Ashley Leia of Mental Health @ Home,
and
Carol Anne and her system Many Of Us of Therapy Bits
(lots of applause for the winners, please!).
Thanks so very much to all three of you for sticking by, it’s hugely appreciated! π Also thanks to all the other involved readers of my blog, who I wasn’t able to award, as of course I can’t award everyone, but I hope you too do feel no less welcome at My Inner MishMash. π
The awards have been sent out earlier today, and should actually be with you in 3 days (much earlier than I supposed, they’ll be travellin by plane, just like VIP’s should π I just hope the packages didn’t get mixed up at the post office, haha). I really hope you’ll find your awards enjoyable.
Some people like surprises, some don’t, but I figured I’ll give you all a peep into what our winners are getting this year as part of their award, since my Mum took pics anyway.
Misha is not included in the award, π he goes to me as My Inner MishMash Authorship Award. Mum wanted me to stress, to make sure that you won’t have to face too much of a disappointment, that the small carrier bags you’ll find at the top of the packages aren’t part of the award either, they’re just a filler, but I guess why not, it could be part of the award, especially that it contains some excerpts of a very weird Polish magazine, so, who knows, maybe you’ll find it interesting. π
As you can notice, the award is very much Mish-themed, and so are even the chocolates, in a way, although that was actually a pure coincidence. Their name is MichaΕki (MichaΕek is a diminutive of a Polish male name MichaΕ, MichaΕki is the plural form, and Misha, well, after all Misha is a Russian nickname of Michael). π
Ashley, I’m sorry but your T-shirt is going to be white in the end, not black. I hope that is not a problem? Oh and I hope they will fit you guys well.
Also, last, but not least, HUUUGE thanks to my Mum for helping me materialise this crazy idea of mine, it couldn’t happen without her dedication, and she spent a lot of time running around getting things I needed for it.
I hope it will be at least as much fun for you, Meg, Ashley, and Carol Anne, as making those awards was for me, and thank you once again for being part of My Inner MishMash! β€
Are you excited about Christmas, or any other holidays you are going to celebrate soon? Any plans?
My answer:
Well, we don’t have the Christmas overwhelm here yet, waay too early, though I’ve heard from some other people that it’s more and more visible already in their countries. For us, the “xmassy” madness starts around the beginning of December. That could be because of the fact that we have two other holidays in the meantime, not as huge, especially not in the sense of marketing and all that, but still quite largely celebrated and present in people’s consciousness. One is Independence Day on November 11, and the other is St. Andrew’s Day on November 30, when people make dancing parties or balls or school proms or whatever, do a lot of dancing, plus single ladies looking for love traditionally foretell their future in lots of different ways, the most common being pouring hot wax from a candle through the ring of a key into cold water. Then when the wax becomes solid you hold it in front of a candle and interpret the shape of it as to what it could mean in regards to your future, especially your romantic life. I am celebrating Independence Day, as in, it’s a very important day for me, but I’m not planning to do anything super special for that. But it’s a holiday so I’ll spend it with my family. Am I excited? Guess not, but I’m definitely very happy that we can celebrate our Independence and very grateful for that, and for all the people in our history who made it happen. For St. ANdrew’s Day I’m not excited at all, I don’t really care about that. I’m single, but not looking for a romantic relationship, and hate dancing. Sofi is doing a little party for her friends, and my parents are going out for a party FOR SENIORS (no, they’re not seniors, but I guess they like it this way π ). I guess it’s some sort of a national day for Scotland so I might binge on some good Scottish music that evening, or read something Scottish perhaps, we’ll see. π
I’m really hardly ever very much excited for Christmas, I mean I like the holiday in itself, but all the chaos that comes with it and is present everywhere, it is overwhelming and it annoys me a bit how superficial it looks and like people have no idea what’s it all about, but I remember I wrote on that last year. as well as the Christmas celebrations themselves usually take a toll on me because of all the socialising, sitting at the tables for hours and feeling bored, or lonely in the crowd or overloaded. It has its upsides but it is tiring. I used to be more fond of it when I was at school and Christmas meant to me that I could go home, but as soon as all the gatherings started, part of me really wanted it to be over. This year is a little bit different because of My Inner Mishmash Readership Award, I’m so excited with it!
As for Christmas plans, we know almost for sure that we’re going to celebrate Christmas Eve at my grandparents’. Christmas Eve is actually the most celebrated day of Christmas in Poland, people have a big, meatless supper, Christmas carols are already sung and people unbox their presents as well. So we’re most likely going to go to my Mum’s parents, and celebrate the Christmas Eve with them, all her siblings and their families.
So, how about your holidays and plans? π
