So Tired

I don't know where my tiredness comes from. Well, actually I do know, we have had a rough 1 1/2 years and now that things are going more smoothly, it all comes hitting me from behind.

I just want you to know that I am ok, I am fine, the family is fine, I am just so tired both physically, but mostly mentally at the moment. I am working myself through the house, as if the world will be a better place if I only get the last load of laundry ironed. In a way it's comforting to close up in a bubble and focus on the very small things and manage to put something right.

O and I are talking a lot. I feel very blessed to have such a great person to share my life with.

If I only wasn't so tired.

Mechanism

365 challenge: 181 mechanism

This little beauty, I received as a Christmas gift from a friend. My grandmother had a similar thing when I was little and I loved it. In Swedish it's called änglaspel, which means musical angels. Now my children are as intrigued with it's mechanism as I was as a child.

This is a tea light holder and when the tea light warms the air, the little angles *in this case snow flakes* start to spin round and round.

Thank you M for a wonderful gift!

PS. The snow flakes are lit by some bigger candles, standing to it's right *they are reflected in the background patio doors*

Hooked on: Lysekil - a Swedish Coastal Town

Pretty Swedish balcony with wooden details *in Sweden, these details
are called Carpenter's Joy*

Julia at Hooked on Houses is holding a "Hooked on party" today. Since I have so many things that I am practically crazy about, I really want to participate. The first thing that I am going to show you is some details from Sweden. I am originally Swedish *however living in London* and my heart is really beating for Sweden at the moment. I am longing for the pretty scenery and the sleepy villages, so I thought I'll show you some photos I took this summer, when I had little walk around one of my favorite coastal towns of the Swedish West Coast, Lysekil.

Pretty picket fence.

Lysekil is a town, being mentioned as early as in the 16th century as an important fishing village. Around 1850 it became a hot spot for the Swedish socialites, who came here for recreation. I love the houses, you can find anything from massive wooden villas from the late 19th century to little pretty cottages.

I really long for summer when I can take another walk with my camera in Lysekil.

To view more Hooked on -contributions, please click here.

Purple & Black

I've had another busy week. My son has started school again and I am happy to say that it's gone so well! He is very happy and his teacher is absolutely wonderful. He has also found new love and since it is mutual, he is already drawing up plans for the wedding.

I am very much looking forward to the weekend. I have promised myself to have a little walk on my own with my camera, I haven't even touched it for 3 days now!

Today's Friday's Colours are Purple and Black and looking through my archive, all I could find was this lavender gate *from Lysekil, a pretty coastal town in Sweden*, which I posted a close-up of in November. But I think it's worth showing in a more zoomed out version today. Another little reminder of the more colourful times to come.

To view more Purple and Black contributions, please click here.

Hope you all have a great start to the weekend!

Winter

Today's Tuesday Theme is winter. What winter looks like where we live and what we do on a wintery day. I wish I could say that a typical winter's day is full of snow and that we are out playing, but it's not. We are happy if we get frost or the occasional halv inch of snowfall. So, this photo, which I took on an outing in December, is quite typical of a very wintery day here.

We were amazed by the ice on the pond, the weather was crisp, the sky was blue and we had a great walk in a park. On our way home, we stopped by Starbucks and had some lovely coffe/hot chocolate.

To view more wintery contributions, please click here.

New

365 challenge: 198 New

Yesterday when I was out in my garden, I was just sitting watching my surroundings. Only brown leaves, not a flower in sight *we did have a bush with some interesting flowers until a couple of days ago, when my 3year old decided to pick them all to make surprice soup for me and her older brother..*.

Anyway, in the middle of all the browns and greys of my winter garden, I saw one branch of green new leaves. A promise of the times to come.

It really cheered me up.

One Hundred

365 challenge: 1 One Hundred

We haven't really done much this weekend. I have been working and twice a day I we have been out playing with Ebba. Yesterday, I took the camera with me outside and I desperately tried to get a nice shot of Ebba playing. I was lucky if I even caught her on the frame of the photo, but if I did it was mostly a complete blur. When I uploaded the photos to my laptop this morning I noticed that I had taken 100 photos of her. Of the 100 photos one was a good one and this is the very one.

Candlelight

365 challenge: 39 Candlelight

A New Year, new challenges and one of them is the 365 challenge. I had a fair try at the 366 last year, but due to the year being quite a hard year for us as a family, I didn't have the time and the dedication as I would have liked.

But I learnt so much and I am so grateful for all the wonderful people I have got to know and I think I am more into the habit and "thinking" of a daily photo challenge. I live and breath with my lens nowadays.

My first 365 contribution will be my candlelit zink houses. I have 4 of them and they are so pretty and they have spread the light on our dining table through out Christmas.

Update: As I am absolutely terrible with shooting anything without having great lighting, I tried taking this photo when it still was some daylight outside and it worked a treat!

I bought these at Butiken Flitiga Fredrika, which I highly recommend!

Green & White

Green & White

Today's Friday colours are Green & White. Since I am following puppy every step today *O is at work and we seriously need to step up the potty training part of our puppy life*, I will be using a photo from December, so this does not make it to the 365.

I think frost is magical and I could probably start a whole "frost blog" if I just lived in such a part of the world. But, London has been promised frost this weekend and Sunday we are allowed to take Ebba to the park, so I am hoping for some really good wintery photo options then.

Do you want to see more Green & White contributions? Please click here.