MIA'S PEARLS

Bring on 2012

2012-01-04T12:12:00.006Z

There comes a time in life where you have to choose.

Where you reach a realization that you cannot change people, the only thing you can truly change is yourself, or actually the way you look at life.

A wise person said "Life is 10% your circumstances and 90% how you react to it"

We have had a crappy 2 years, worse that worst. It all started in 2010 when I got extremely ill, doctors told me that it was a next to impossible for a person to survive without serious complications, but I did.

The devastation for me, or for us as a family was that absolutely no-one cared. Of if they did, they didn't care to show it to me.

We were twice the past year presented with enormous challenges.

Again, zero response.

Something just clicked in me just before 2012 started.

Enough of all the nay-sayers, of all the "please enrich my life with your funny anecdotes and words of encouragement, but I will still keep on not invite you to the fun parts of my life, because I simply have so many friends that you don't fit" - people that I think many of us have around us (I certainly do!)

We are off on our adventure.

It starts today.

The adventure is to choose only what drives you forward, what makes you happy.

A happiness that spreads like ripples on a pond, for all those who are willing to perceive them.

To choose only those who want to join you on the ride.

(this is the new part of my life)

We will leave everyone who doesn't want to enjoy life with us behind.

I am burning bridges, I have already mourned relationships that are forever broken

I feel free

There are an abundance of new bridges to be built, but the opportunity to find new bridges never presents itself, are you constantly occupied with repairing old crappy ones.

I am aiming for the sky, I want to capture every little ordinary moment of life as well as finding shelter in the love of my nearest and dearest.

I want to celebrate my family

I want to celebrate my life

Bring on 2012!

It's a new me.

a new life.

Everyday is an opportunity.

Are you in for the ride?

PS. Through my years of blogging, I have experienced such amazing encouragement, shared joy, enlightment, wisdom, the list can go on and on, and this year, I am definitely choosing YOU. I need this, I need my camera to show me what is important in life and taking part in your precious moments, ups and downs.

Happiness is...

2011-11-15T10:38:00.009Z

Happiness is being 6 years old...

...and loosing your first tooth.

I hope you have enjoyed my Sweet Tuesday amg Happiness contribution.

For more Sweet Tuesday & Happiness:

Wordless rose

2011-10-19T16:46:00.004+01:00

Birthday rose

I am having such a busy week this week.

The weather is gorgeous and all I want to do is head out with the children and see if we can find any leaves to jump around in (we've had some few cooler days now), but noooo. Fingers crossed, the weather will stay crisp and lovely over the weekend as well!

Yesterday, I decided to try to take some pictures of some of my birthday roses.

Spending my days with 3 children, it never fails to amaze me how easily they find the joy in the smallest of things.

When I was working with this rose, it fell apart and they were allowed to play with the petals. They managed to make pretend food, make a petal rocket and make up a game where you had to throw petals in different cups to score points.

Happiness all around!

I got lots of pretty petal shots, I will post some tomorrow for my texture shots.

For more Wednesday contributions, see below.

Autumn passion

2011-10-17T17:58:00.004+01:00

Passion fruits in our garden

It's been a happy, happy Monday today!

It was a long time since I had a really happy Monday, normally they feel a bit overwhelming, since I normally have more work to do than what fits into a day. I still have loads to do today, but at least spirits have been high!

Haven't even touched my camera, so what better to do than tagging along

Chic Homeschool Mama and her Monday rewind?

The photo is taken in our garden last week. This is climbing all over our garage and it took us a while to realize, it is passion fruit. With no other autumn foliage around, this works for me, in terms of autumn colours.

Hope you are having a great Monday too!

Colourful ballerina

2011-10-15T14:59:00.008+01:00

My happy ballerina

Last December, I hurt my back quite badly. It took me months before I was back to normal and I missed out on a whole term of "ballerina school", which my daughter calls her much beloved ballet lessons.

In July, I was well enough to do the car journey to her big performance day at Ballerina school and she was absolutely beaming the whole time. I followed her with my camera for the whole 40 minutes of the show and she gave me these happy glances thoughout the show. A happy, happy day for both of us.

So this is my precious colourful contribution.

Birthday orchid

I also received this gorgeous orchid from my husband on my birthday.

A favorite flower of mine.

For more colourful and Saturday flowers, click below:

Friday's precious moments

2011-10-14T19:56:00.000+01:00

I have had such a great day today.

Summer is not my favorite season. It is beautiful, but I don't do very well with heat, and with everybody else loving everything to do with heat, it leaves me feeling a little bit misplaced.

So when autumn comes, I get this surge of energy and the feeling of wanting to embrace life to the fullest.

We've had a few days with autumn weather, a little bit of sunshine and nice enough weather to just step outside without a jacket and watch the children play in the garden.

I found a few flowers still in our garden today. I placed them on our garden table to try to take some lovely close-ups when my little helper turned up...

And I ended up loving those photos instead.

The first one is my favorite photo this week.

To view more Friday contributions, click below:

Birthday texture

2011-10-13T17:42:00.010+01:00

It is my birthday today. And part from being completely spoilt with breakfast in bed, birthday cards (little one did a little drawing in his! and the older children made beautiful drawings and competitions in theirs), thoughtful presents and love in abundance, I received some flowers from my dad.

With the flowers, came a surprise.

A box of chocolate!

I love chocolate.

Now, we are only waiting for hubby to come home, so we can have some cake and dig into these lovely goodies!

This is my textured contribution. For more textured and other lovely Thursday challenges, click below:

18 months today

2011-10-12T16:55:00.003+01:00

18 months today.

He did NOT want to get out of his bath this morning.

For more Wordless Wednesday contributions, see below.

Happiness in a cup

2011-10-11T16:29:00.003+01:00

Happiness in a cup

Being back blogging, I have to pick up Leigh's Happiness project, love it!

I was beyond tired this morning and started the day off with a

Hot "Coffee" Chocolate.

With cream.

Pure happiness, if you ask me.

To view more happiness, please visit Leigh, here.

Capturing beauty - British Columbia

2011-10-10T18:13:00.008+01:00

Driving along the fjords in British Columbia, Canada

March 2011

While doing a little photo challenge browsing yesterday, I found Traci's Capturing Beauty-challenge at her lovely blog Ordinary Creations.

After looking through the photos I snapped (yes, snapped, with an 11 month old not-so-keen-car-traveller with us, all I managed to do was to get some snaps of the beautiful fjords of British Columbia, while the car was rolling..) on our trip to Canada in March, I decided to go with one of them. This photo is taken north of Vancouver.

This is one of the things I find truly beautiful and I can't wait to go back.

To view more Capturing Beauty contribution, please view here.

Personal

2011-10-09T20:46:00.006+01:00

I have finally got the hang of my new camera (as well as working in overdrive for 6 months) and yesterday it all clicked for me.

"I need to start taking daily photos again."

And I don't mean that I really would like to, I really need to do this to feel good (I have not being feeling well not doing so.

I have literally not been logged into my blogging account for 6 months, but I crave taking photos and reflecting over my day looking back on my photos in the evening.

So here I am again.

One of my favorite photo challenges is Fototriss and today's theme is Personal.

So what are my photos of today? Well, I work from home and I love to use my camera in my job. One thing I do is to give my work a little personal touch, so here is my daughter (C, yes she is 6 now!, I think she was 2 when I started this blog...!) featuring one of the items at work.

I really liked how the photos turned out, so I though I use them for my fototriss. To view more contributions, please click here.

New camera!

2011-03-11T14:27:00.001Z

Just a quick note to say that I have a new camera, wonderful husband went all out and surprised me with a fanstastic camera, much better (and more advanced) than my last, so this weekend, I will be up and running again. :)

Just need to figure out how it works... ;)

Noooooooo!!!

2011-01-18T16:15:00.003Z

What a weekend! First out, my camera broke down and a couple of hours later my laptop crashed. After about 12h my husband managed to revive the computer, we need to install new software and buy new disks, but at least it seems as if we don't need to buy a completely new one.

After scrutinizing our financial situation, we decided that I would simply buy a new camera house, but on the way to our daughter's ballet lesson *during which, my husband was supposed to go out and buy a camera house for me*, the car breaks down!

The car has been working like clock work for 2 years and now it decides it's time to break down. So, buying that camera house is simply out of the picture at present, please keep your fingers crossed, it's going to the garage tomorrow for evaluation and so we know whether it's worth doing repairs to it or if completely new car is needed.

I've felt so good doing my daily photography, I am so disappointed, especially falling behind with my 365, I also had such a wonderful project I was going to start up this past weekend.

I hope I will be up and running with the blog really soon. If the car only needs a quick-fix *both transmission and motor seems to be living it's own life, but you never know, IF it's something very easily and non-expensively fixed*, I might be able get myself a camera later this week, if not...it simply will have to wait.

Guess my occupation and You Capture

2011-01-13T14:32:00.011Z

365 #81: Gissa Yrke (Guess my occupation)

I am not the best lying-on-the-floor-and-play-with-train-tracks-kind-a-mother. I do it, rather reluctantly, I must admit.

I love reading books, playing games, baking and doing arts and crafts with my children. Therefore I love the start-to-read-and-write-age when we can play games, or like me and my daughter did today, play with her new business venture, that was set up shortly after Santa came round the house this Christmas.

One of the themes for the 365 is Guess My Occupation (Gissa Yrket), so please take a little guess from looking at the photo. Then scroll down and have a look at the answer.

♥

365 #33: Business

Easy peasy: A Fairy Post Office, off course! ;)

Also I am joining Beth at I Should Be Folding Laundry today at her You Capture challenge. She has introduced a theme today, doorways, but since I only realized after already picking out my photos of the day that I had planned to join her, I hope I can still join letting you know that I have truly enjoyed all the photo challenges this year so far.

They are truly doorways to great friendship and has really lifted my spirit this week and even made me laugh out loud in front of my computer.

Thank you for stopping by.

Heavenly Swedish Winter

2011-01-12T16:19:00.010Z

I am trying out Petunia's weekly Heavenly project (Himmelsk in Swedish). To me this photo above represents heavenly in so many ways.

This photo was taken 2 years ago, when we went skiing in Sweden. Just looking at this photo, transports me back to that afternoon. The sun was setting and the sky was beautiful after a day of sunny weather. The air was cold and crisp and I had a little moment to myself outside the cabin, which in itself was a truly heavenly moment. I was amazed by the icicles hanging from the roof and tried to capture the light from the sky coming through them. If you start looking at them, you can see the reflection of the sky and the other icicles within the icycle itself.

Heavenly.

To view more heavenly vistas, please visit Petunia.

An ordinary day and the Happiness Project

2011-01-11T12:31:00.013Z

365 #331 Vardag (An ordinary day)

Today, I am joining Leigh at Leigh vs Laundry (my goodness, can I relate to her blog name!) in the Happiness Project.

The task is to post a photo of something that makes you wildly happy and truth to be told, I love my ordinary days. Days when the house is all turned upside down with toys and games and I try to manage to get through the day somehow. This photo is such a good picture of what a completely normal moment in our house is like. I am trying to take a photo of something *in this case a golden Christmas Tree*, my son is deeply concentrated in his Harry Potter Lego game and my daughter is dancing around the floor in one of the fairy outfits, which she currently seems to be living in. (Baby is on the floor behind me). I, currently suffering from a bad back, have shoved the poor little tree down a paper towel roll to get it into a more comfortable height for me to shoot. I think I had some idea of changing to my macro lens, but looking in my archive, something must have interrupted my photo session, because I only have about 3 identical photos from this afternoon.

That is quite typical too. ;)

To view more Happiness, please visit Leigh vs Laundry *I have posted her Happiness banner further down on the left hand side*.

Petunia's Attention and Ornament (Prydnad)

2011-01-10T14:05:00.003Z

365 #221: Prydnad (Ornament)

For today's Monday theme, Petunia has chosen attention. This could be interpreted in so many ways, but I have chosen to show you something that I've bought for my children.

During the past years, I have been very focused on practicalities. We have been moving house a lot and we have never come round to the little details in our home. Before Christmas I found a lovely store which sold little ornaments (sv. prydnadssaker) and I particularly liked these little boats with little messages. I have bought a few of them and put them in the childrens' rooms.

I have found that it's a wonderful thing to have, an ornament with an encouraging message, that catches your attention for a moment and gives you a little boost.

To view more attention contributions, please check in with Petunia.

As always I am happy for comments in both English, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian... :)

Trio of Photos

2011-01-09T13:18:00.013Z

365 #103: Own theme: Blueberries (Blåbär)

365 #357: Egg (Ägg)

365 #293: Sunday (Söndag), enjoying a raspberry and blueberry smoothie

Today's Trio of photos, or Fototriss as it's called in Swedish didn't have a given theme, the task was to present three photos which hold the same theme and let the viewers guess.

I guess mine is not that tricky to figure out. Little one slept until 9 (!!!) today, so we had a very good morning. Sunday, for me, is all about spending time with the family relaxing, enjoying each other's company and eating food we like and this Sunday morning we did just that.

To view more Fototriss contributions, please click here.

As always, I am happy for comments in both English and Swedish (or Norweigan, Danish...well you get the point!) ;)

Mischief (bus/busa)

2011-01-06T17:31:00.011Z

365 #32: Busa (making mischief)

Little one is now officially all over the place. He doesn't crawl yet, but he manages to shove himself around on the floor, and that quite quickly too! I guess that this mischievous look will be more frequent from now on...

Please remember that I am just as happy to receive comments in Swedish as in English...

välkomna att lämna en rad på svenska! :)

Glisten (Glittra)

2011-01-05T20:14:00.005Z

365 #83: Glittra (glisten)

The day has just swooshed by today. We had sun, but it was up and down before I had time to even get my camera out. So...the only thing worth taken any photos of this evening when O arrived home to take over attending to little one, was....the Christmas tree *sorry, may not be what we all long to rest our eyes at this time of year*.

Anyway, it was very dark in the room, I had quite a light sensitive lens, the tree had bright white fairy lights, which helps tremendously when taking photos. The tree is standing in a bay window, so I managed to get some reflections as well.

Pretty pleased with my glistening shot, given it's just an ordinary swooshed-by-Wednesday.

Duplicate whites (Vita dubletter)

2011-01-04T13:50:00.010Z

365 #47: Dubletter / Duplicate

2 duplicate white teeth in little ones mouth. He is teething now, so I guess we'll be seing more of these in a week or so. But this far, only 2.

Realizing this is a little bit of a long shot as they are not really in focus, but I didn't manage to get a really good photo of him and the teeth in focus before he grew tired of sitting on the sofa...

(I have covered 2 themes today, please have a look at Klarröd, below)

Bright red (Klarröd)

2011-01-04T13:35:00.008Z

365 #129: Klarröd (bright red)

Finally, the long lost Christmas gifts from granddad and uncle arrived today. J, received a book which she was very pleased with. She has broken the reading code in both Swedish and English now, so I find her with a book on her lap most times of the day.

Her gift was wrapped with a pretty red tie, with red hearts and I put it up in her hair. To make her see what it looked like, I took a photo and only afterwards, I realized that I had actually captured a 365 theme: Klarröd, which means bright red.

Silver

2011-01-02T17:57:00.004Z

365 #254: Silver

We've had a very sleepy day today. Little one has been keeping us up at night for 4 nights now and we have been running out of steam here, so I slept through the whole first half of the day, catching up on my sleep and husband took to bed for the afternoon.

A little while in between, we were all in the kitchen. The children were playing with play dough, C making intricate details for play dough men's hair, J making pretty cookies and A happily watching them, chewing away on one of the lids to the dough jars. Husband was listening to music and I tried my luck with my macro lens. I also took a couple of shots with my regular 17-55mm and when I looked back on the results, I realized that I liked those shots much better.

So here is my Silver contribution, one of Linn's necklaces that she received from her grandmother for Christmas. I think it's her first real silver nacklace and needless to say, she loves it!

I you look carefully, you can see what makes this photo extra special. C is sitting in the background smiling, leaning his chin in his hand, looking at me working with my camera. (He also had a go later).

January

2011-01-01T16:05:00.007Z

365 #116: January

Finally, it's here. January 1st, how I have been waiting! :)

I hope all of you are having a wonderful start to the New Year, whether it's spent curled up on the sofa reading a good book or out and about exploring.

Today, all our little town was offering was a deserted and very foggy walk, we hardly met anyone on our walk along the beach today. A couple of dog walkers were hurrying past us, while the children happily collected their daily ration of pebbles that is always brought home when we've been walking along the beach.

I was clutching my camera, eagerly watching out for something interesting to capture. I actually did not find that much to shoot, so the premier photo for my 365 challenge for 2011 will have to be these branches.

So empty and bare, but still delicate and holding a promise of a beautiful year to come.

Happy New Year everyone!

Monday Theme: Stämning / Mood

2010-12-13T20:22:00.005Z

My zink houses always gets me in the mood for Christmas.

To view more mood contributions, visit Petunia.

Black and White: My baby

2010-12-10T18:31:00.006Z

Today has been both a scary day and a day of gratefulness.

This afternoon this little chap decided to see if he could swallow a cardboard box in an instant (when I turned my back for 2 seconds). He not only managed to chew off a piece of cardboard, he also chewed off a big piece of cellar tap, which got wedged down his throat.

It took me a while, trying to get it out before I realized. My goodness, I might not be able to sort this one out by myself. Very scary moment.

So I called the ambulance.

By the time they arrived he was breathing and the piece of tape was nowhere to be seen. He either managed to swallow it, or as I suspect, it simply fell out when I was walking back and forth to the door looking for the ambulance and holding him forward tilted, which was the only position for him to breath with the thing still stuck in there. I found a large piece of the same kind of cellar tape on the hallway floor later.

Now I feel all washed out of energy, but still buzzing with a sense of warmth and happyness, that it all went well.

I was looking through my photos, to find something suitable for the The Weekend in Black and White when I stumbled upon this photo of E, when he turned 7 months in November.

So my baby is my contribution this week.

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

My Zink tea light holder

2010-12-09T12:51:00.009Z

Having my first try ever with a macro lens (and finding it a little bit tricky, focusing only by moving the whole camera closer or further from the object). Baby woke up before I had the shot, so this is the result of today's session, but I have promised myself to rather post often than only when I am 100% happy with a photo (which I admit, with hindsight, has not been than often!) ;)

I thought I'd let you peek into my zink tea light holder... for todays NF Macro challenge. I LOVE all my zink tea light holders, I also have a couple of zink houses. I have a feeling you will see more of them before Christmas is over...

To view more NF Macro contributions, please click here.

Here is the zink tea light holder without macro:

Tuesday theme: Väntan / Waiting...

2010-12-07T16:24:00.005Z

I've picked up my camera again! :)

Today's Tuesday Theme is Väntan, which means waiting for something.

December is all about Christmas anticipation. To me and to my children.

To view more Tuesday Themes, please click here.

What I have been up to over the past year

2010-07-02T17:43:00.001+01:00

Meet E, 11 weeks old.

Finally!

2010-06-27T15:39:00.004+01:00

We are here again, in Sweden. Last Summer, in fact the past year has not exactly gone our way *I will tell you more about that at another occasion*, but at present, I am enjoying the Swedish West Coast again and this weekend is the Swedish big summer holiday weekend, when Mid Summer is being celebrated.

J is now soon to be 5years old and loved the flowers in her hair,
customary to Mid Summer celebrations.

This is what I am longing for

2009-07-21T14:02:00.003+01:00

I am reposting this photo. We just cancelled our trip to Sweden, that we were supposed to do this coming Friday. We still have 1-2 weeks of the Swedish West Coast to look forward to in August, so it's not all that bad, but having built up all the anticipation to go, I am really aching for this spot in the world, so I just have to repost this.

Taken last summer, on a little outing on the cliffs with the family.

Grey and Green

2009-07-10T11:24:00.004+01:00

A good way of getting back into my blogging habit, I think, is to pick up the different weekly challenges that I used to do. One of them are Friday Colours and today the subject is grey and green. I immediately thought of O's grandmother's house. She had the most gorgeous hallway, in cool shades of green and grey, probably chosen when the house was built in 1919 and she moved into the house as a 5 year old girl.

If you want to view more Friday Colour contributions, please click here.

Missing my Swedish West Coast

2009-07-06T09:56:00.004+01:00

At least the temperature has gone down now. Over 33 degrees in a metropolitan city is not a pleasure at all *actually I don't like 33 degrees anywhere, but in a city it's even worse*.

I have been quite okay with not being in Sweden that much this summer. Until last night. I have been thinking of doing some photos into wall art, you know "photo on canvas" and I started browsing through my photos from last summer. I remember when I took this, O and the children were fishing crabs on the cliffs just off the beach and I took a little stroll with my camera. I absolutely loved this view and as I sat down I saw the sail of the sailboat emerging from behind the house and I snapped some shots. I actually wasn't happy enough with this photo last summer, so I never posted it as part of my 366, but to me now, today, it looks like paradise.

A little break from work

2009-07-03T15:05:00.003+01:00

June has been absolutely frantic, work around the clock all days of the week *I know, not good* Our Midsummer weekend *a Swedish holiday weekend* was spent in London and I was actually working the whole weekend, going to an exhibition, but on Sunday afternoon, I finished early and caught up with the family at London Zoo.

C decided to try face painting for the first time.
*you can really see his anticipation, knowing he is going to look
really, really cool*

A very happy spiderman

After refusing face painting at first, J changed her mind
and wanted to be a flower fairy.

Have completely fallen off..

2009-06-11T11:22:00.003+01:00

..the blogging wagon. Have had just about 1000 things to do and not been happy with my photos (somehow I have taken 1146 photos lately, and I am not happy with them).

So I am thinking of changing the format of my blog, back to my old diary thing. I know the 365 is just for fun, but I realize that I am not that good at deciding that "this should be my boat photo for the year" *what if I take a much better boat photo this summer?*, it leaves me never happy with what I do *and that is not like me*.

I will start doing my "pearl blogging" again. Just finding something that got me through the day. Not tied to a theme, just posting whatever life is throwing my way.

That's what I am going to do.

Celebration!

2009-05-11T10:48:00.005+01:00

#42 Celebration

Just over a year ago, I started to turn my life around. After years of migrains, aches in my body, I stopped eating carbs. For 8 days I had the worst headache ever, and after that it just stopped.

For the last 13 months, I have only had migrain twice and both of the times have involved carbs.

Part from getting my health back, I have also lost weight and today, when I jumped on the scales, I realized that I have reached my first goal:

-10.2kg, that is 22.5 pounds. And I've done it by focusing on natural organic food, not forgetting eating natural sources of fat and a minimum of carbohydrates.

*Yay!!* :)

Nostalgia

2009-05-07T10:12:00.003+01:00

365 challenge #200: Nostalgia
O's grandmother's house, where she lived from age 7 to age 90.

I've spent the past couple of days in the past. Our 16 year old cat became ill this weekend. I know she is old and I have been wondering when she would start to deteriorate (feeling quite practical about it and not at all emotional), but I wasn't prepared to all the emotions it would bring. I literally spent the weekend sobbing completely flooded with memories of when I moved into my first flat and all my plans for my future and all the fun I had with my little kitten. She followed me everywhere.

It seems that her condition is non-reversable, but at least for now she is quite happy and comfortable and it's so great to see. I will speak with the vet again today and hopefully we will be able to enjoy her for a little bit longer.

Bluebells

2009-05-01T17:08:00.003+01:00

365 challenge #64, My Own Theme: Bluebells

Our garden is blue. All the borders are just minifields of these pretty flowers. I tried to shoot them by laying my head right into the border and shooting them from underneath. They look so much prettier that way, I think.

Now is almost the best day of the whole weekend. Monday is a Bank holiday, so we have 3 days of no school ahead of us and it just feels wonderful. Tonight I am going to try to make a low carb fruitpie, if it's good, I will share it with you.

My Weekly Reflection - Seasonal

2009-04-30T07:46:00.005+01:00

365 challenge #270 : Seasonal

This week has really trodded along in piece and quiet. I have never been so happy with just the normal ordinary things on in my diary,as this week. I absolutely love all the flowers in the garden (photo not from our garden, it's from Legoland! :) ) and it has not been as hot as last week. Daily rain, some work and a spot of ironing has really made my week!

To see more Weekly Reflections, please click here.

After the Party

2009-04-27T09:03:00.002+01:00

365 challenge #22: My Own Theme: After the Party

This photo will probably be something I will look at with great satisfaction for months to come. Yesterday, we had Cs birthday party, with 15 children. Since I spent all Saturday with the migraine attack of the century, we had loads to do last morning when we got up *6am!*. 10 minutes before the party started we had finished with all the preparations..

C loved his party, so I am so happy that we decided to have it at home. After all his friends had left and the gifts were opened, C and J sat down in the empty dining room and quietly did some of the left over craft. I was absolutely exhausted at this point, just sitting in the sofa and enjoying them. I tried to focus on the balloon and then *before the camera had time to refocus*, I moved the camera, so the balloon ended up at the top of the photo, still in focus.

Hope you've had a great weekend. I have never been happier with a regular Monday than today.. :)

Backlighting

2009-04-24T11:54:00.003+01:00

365 challenge #19: Backlighting

Have had a very chaotic morning, so when I looked through the photos that I have taken the past weeks to choose something to post, this photo felt very soothing. I would like to hope that my day is a little bit like this tulip. This tulip is a bit dried out, has lost a couple of petals and nothing you would ever remember, you would rather just throw it in the bin.

But seen in a different light, it is a beautiful inspiring butterfly...

Beverage of Choice

2009-04-23T19:12:00.005+01:00

Is there anything better than a moment
of peace and quiet and a coffee?

J has been driving me crazy this afternoon. After picking C up from school, I felt really buzzing with energy and I made a long mental list of the things that I would be able to finish before the end of this day. At home, I suddenly got a bit of a headache and realized a 10 minute lie down would probably do the trick.
But nooo, J decided a mum in bed was about the worst thing she could think of and I ended up jumping up and down out of bed every 2 minutes. Nothing, and I mean nothing helped.

I guess I should just have poured myself a coffee and stood by the kitchen counter *she is always happy when I am working in the kitchen*. Now O is here and I have told him that I will go absolutely mad if I don't get 15 minutes of peace and quiet and he took the kids to the kitchen and has started to prepare dinner. Somehow I still feel bad for trying to get my lie down.

Sunday

2009-04-23T10:52:00.003+01:00

365 challenge #310: Sunday

A couple of weeks ago *a Sunday*, we went to our local Botanical Garden. Everything was just about to break out in full bloom and it was raining. We even had some hail, so we had to hide under a tree for a long time *which in itself was a bit of an adventure for the children*.

As I took this photo, two other photographers came up to the same tree and O told me later that it looked quite funny with the three of us standing with our cameras shoved into the tree branches..

Today, the trees are in full bloom and I can't help missing that rainy day when there were buds everywhere.

Building

2009-04-22T11:44:00.004+01:00

During the Easter weekend, we drove our car back to UK from Sweden. This is a 2-3day trip, so we stayed at a very nice hotel in Malmo, in the south of Sweden. When taking this photo, I am standing in front of the hotel waiting for O and the kids who went to fetch our car. It is a chain hotel, but this one was exceptionally nice, I think.

Birthday Boy

2009-04-21T15:21:00.003+01:00

365 challenge #32: Boy

We've had a great birthday weekend. Friday, we went to the National History Museum, but when arriving there and seeing the queues all the way out on the street, we decided to go to to Hyde Park instead. Just as we entered the park, it started to rain so we headed for the cinema's.

Sunday, we went to Legoland and this is where I took this photo. They have a Knights Castle there and C was allowed to buy a Knights outfit. He was soo proud, but the non-violent boy he is, he rather walked around to preserve peace than running around with a sword.

7 years

2009-04-17T09:50:00.005+01:00

...ago this little guy came into our lives. From day one, he was very active, always keeping us on the go. As new parents of our first born, we did everything we could think of to keep him happy, from walking non-stopp for hours just to let him sleep, or dancing with him at 3am in the morning in the livingroom when his tummy was upset to eating dinner bouncing on a pilates ball with him strapped to our tummy just because that's how he liked it.

*I have to find a 1year old photo to post here, these photos are on an encrypted disk somewhere...I have to ask O where*

A curious and happy little guy Summer of 2004,
just over 2years old.

3 years old and insisting on going to a fairy party
in nothing else that a fairy costume. *off course*

4 years old and enjoying his first summer in Sweden.

A 5 year old thoughtful pirate.

6years old and this photo is very special to me, since this is one of the first
signs of C "boucing back" last year.
He looks so powerful and this photo also has the added bonus of being the first
photo where he looks like a little copy of is granddad, who sadly past away when
C was 3. When I see this photo, I get the feeling that his granddad is truly
looking after C.

We are so happy that this little guy chose us to be his parents, he is a true gift.

Photos of the 7year old will follow later today.
He is currently playing with his birthday presents, waiting for dad to finish work,
so we can all go to "the Dinosaur Museum"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, C!!

First family vacation

2009-03-30T09:56:00.008+01:00

365 challenge #26: Big Event

This was actually our first family holiday. We do go away every now and then, but either it is a combined business trip, or we are house hunting or we are renovating our house, so this time, it was our first trip together of pure pleasure. And I must say, I am hooked!! It was absolutely wonderful doing nothing. I normally work online and wherever you go nowadays you can always go online, but this week we didn't. It was just family, snow, skiing, good meals and the tempered outdoor pool in the evenings.

The photo above is taken day 2 at C's attempt to learn to ski. He started off day 1 with a 1 1/2hour session in the slope with O. I didn't see him the first day, so I had almost a bit of a shock when I came to the slopes to check him out. He was skiing as if he was born with skiis on. And he absolutely loved it!

365 challenge #154: Humor

He was a bit exhausted by lunchtime, to say the least.. I thought he looked quite cute flopped on our lunch table.

365 challenge #234: Pink

My daughter's favorite colour above all...

365 challenge #340: My Own Theme: J skiing

J had 2 days of skiing. We had not planned for her to do any skiing, but she insisted, so O took her to the slopes. The first day she could hardly stand on her skiis, but the second day she started off skiing between O's legs to swiftly move on to skiing beside him, both of them holding a stick. Here she is resting at the bottom of the slope.

A little bonus shot, to give you an idea just of how tiny a 3.5year old really is in the slopes.

Here I am coming to the slopes, walking through the wood on a transportation slope from the parking lot, spotting O and J, they had just got off the lift.

9 am

2009-03-28T11:00:00.003Z

365 challenge 2: 9.00 am

One of the mornings, I took a walk by myself. This is the road, where our log cabin was situated. It was an absolutely gorgeous morning, -3degrees Celsius, sunny and very quiet.

365 challenge 292: Snow

I just had to shove my camera into one of the snow piles. It looked just like glistening sugar close up.

365 challenge 253: My Own Theme: Tracks in the Snow

Fire or Flame

2009-03-25T19:09:00.004Z

365 challenge 100: Fire or Flame

I absolutely love the sound, sight and smell of a log fire. When we had our house in the countryside, we installed a wood burner and ever since we sold the house, I have really missed having a log fire.

So the very first thing we did when we arrived in the log cabin was to light a fire. I tried to take some shots through the glass *had to crop a little bit to get rid of the reflections in the glass*.

Bodies of Water

2009-03-25T14:27:00.003Z

365 challenge: Bodies of Water

A pretty stream at the bottom of the valley. It was the only non-frozen water that I saw up in the mountain region. The big river was frozen over and on lakes you could see people sitting fishing.

My 6th Photo

2009-03-24T19:16:00.003Z

Coming back from our skiingtrip *which was wonderful, I will tell you all about it during the next couple of days*, I was greeted by a whole bunch of comments. Thank you so much, all of you who takes time to leave a message for me when you drop by!

I was also challenged by Debra, Lorri, Sunny and Karen:

Here are the rules:

•Go to your photo folder on your computer
•Go to the 6th folder of photos
•Go to the sixth picture
•Put the picture on your blog and a description of it
•Invite six friends to join the challenge
•Link them in your blog

I must admit, I was a bit nervous going to my photo-folder and started to count. The 6th folder in my photo-folder is photos from the 20th of Feb 2008 *I got my camera last year in February* and the 6th photo was a rose photo, which I am very happy to post again.

I haven't been around your blogs yet, so I don't know who has been tagged yet or not, but here are the blogs that I am challenging:

Baby it's Cold Outside!

2009-03-14T09:58:00.005Z

365 challenge 18: Baby It's Cold Outside

Right now I am bobbing around on the North Sea. We were lucky enough to have our cabin next door to the lounge where there is free internet, so we managed to hook us up from our room.

It was a very excited family who drove onboard the ferry last night. I though J was going to be a bit apprehensive, but she was all smiles and very excited: "Mummy, the floor is falling over!!", she exclaimed when the boat was peacefully moving from side to side.

After a *somewhat* good nights sleep *with something resembling musical beds* we have had our breakfast, done the shopping and now the children are assembling LEGO while O and I are fighting over the computer.. ;)

C and I were outside for a bit earlier, I had hoped for some lovely weather, but it is very grey and foggy and from what you can see, very cold...

When we picked C up from school yesterday, we had his "hair done". They had Comic Relief Day at school and his hair was red and green. Most of the colours are on top of his head, but you can see some of it.

Going skiing

2009-03-13T10:53:00.003Z

Just a quick note, our broadband has *very annoyingly* been bouncing up and down for the past week, so I haven't posted anything. Also, we are going to Sweden today *yay*. I will try to document as much as possible of our trip and I have already marked the internet cafes dotted around our mountain top, where the log cabin is situatated, so I hope I will be online during the trip.

We have a little 3day-drive ahead of us, first we take the ferry to Denmark, where we arrive tomorrow and drive to Sweden. Our first stop is with my mother-in-law. Then, next stop i our home town to visit my grandmother and on Sunday we will do the last 6hour drive up to the southernly mountain region in Sweden.

See you soon!!

On My Table

2009-03-06T19:50:00.004Z

365 challenge: 207 On My Table

Our house is quite bare, we have been moving so many times, I can't remember when I had time to put up wall art or curtains, before it has been time to move again. One thing I usually have, though is a bunch of flowers on my table. These roses were beautifully red when I bought them. As usual, I was very focused when arranging the bouquet, but then I forgot to check the water in the vase and they ended up half dry, too early.

This particular time, I thought it was quite beautiful.

Blue & White

2009-03-06T09:10:00.003Z

Blue & White

Today's Colours are blue and white. I love these blue glass candle holders that my brother gave me. I took some photos of them last year in April. A slightly cropped photo, to bring the glass closer you to.

To view more Blue & White contributions, please click here.

Curvy roots

2009-03-05T19:14:00.006Z

365: 72, Curvy

When we were out in the park the other day, I noticed this beautiful tree. I tried to get O to place Ebba in one of the "holes", so I could take a shot. What a joke, she wasn't still for even a second and the photos look quite funny, but very blurry. However, I managed to take some photos of the roots alone.

I also want to thank everyone for the lovely comments, you are the best!

At first, I was going to do this post as a pure 365 post, but then I realized it's Thursday and that means to reflect on my week. Looking at the photo above, the funny thing is, O and I have been talking a lot about where we are coming from, what we would like to represent as a family, what kind of life we want our children to experience and what we want them to learn. We have been asking ourselves what things from our childhood that was important to us and what we can emphasize here to reflect what we learned in another country 30 years ago? Funnily enough, the photo works very well with my reflection, so I am squeezing these thoughts in this post as well.

I have been thinking a lot about my roots. It is sometimes confusing living abroad. In a week's time, we have been living abroad for 9 years. It is a long time, which has shaped us differently to what we would have been, had we stayed in Sweden. Still, we are different to the British, it's a weird world living "in between" two cultures. Sometimes *mostly* I feel that my life is rich in experiences and I feel very blessed being able to experience two countries and understanding two cultures, but on the other hand, I sometimes feel rootless and as if I don't fit in in either of the worlds.

To view more Thursday's reflections, please click here.

Abstract

2009-03-03T11:35:00.005Z

365: 6, Abstract

I not only have a soft spot for frost, bare trees have such a calming effect on me. There isn't anything more beautiful than watching the abstract art of a naked tree against a clear sky *or like yesterday, a sunset* in the winter.

Yesterday, we took Ebba to the park and on our way home, the sun was setting, so I jumped out of the car and took a walk home. Pure joy!

Bouncing back!

2009-03-03T11:08:00.003Z

366 challenge 61: Companion

I have had a very quiet and much needed month off blogging, well off everything, really. I have enjoyed my family and O has been working on getting the floors down in the house. Only 1.5rooms left at present and it is starting to look really nice.

I took the above photo when we were leaving a show, that J held with her gym class. O was carrying her and I was struck by their happiness. He adores his little girl and to J, daddy is the best person in the world.

So Tired

2009-01-21T09:43:00.004Z

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

2009-01-11T21:52:00.004Z

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

2009-01-09T09:09:00.006Z

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

2009-01-09T08:44:00.004Z

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

2009-01-06T18:17:00.005Z

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

2009-01-04T21:12:00.004Z

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

2009-01-03T17:49:00.002Z

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

2009-01-02T16:56:00.007Z

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

2009-01-02T11:17:00.003Z

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.

Christmas and a New Family Member

2008-12-31T21:42:00.005Z

I hope that you have all had a lovely Christmas, whether it has been one celebrated with lots of family of friends or a more quiet one. We have had the latter and given the complete chaos at work the week running up to Christmas, I am soo thankful that it was only me, O and the kids who celebrated Christmas. A long weekend with zero "has to do's" and only enjoying good food and our family.

This evening (New Year's Eve), C is allowed to be up until midnight and he is so excited. He has ben counting the hours since he woke up this morning and asking us what happens at midnight, what do we say when the new year begins etc.

We also have a new little family member with us this evening. No, I have not managed to be pregnant for 9 months without mentioning it, we happened to visit some puppies the other day. Well, it didn't really just happen, as I have been thinking about it for a while now.

Meet our new baby

Ebba the puppy

Update: 1 Jan 2009 00.45 C made it until Midnight and he and O excitedly went out in the garden to watch fire works, when the tiredness hit him a bit hard and he got all scared and only wanted to climb into bed with mummy and go to sleep. O was left pottytraining with Ebba and now we are hitting bed as well.

Happy New Year!!!

Frost on the Lawn

2008-12-11T09:20:00.010Z

Every Thursday, 3barnsmamman is holding a weekly reflection challenge. I really like the concept of thinking back at your week and pick a photo that reflects that week.

This week has, as all weeks before Christmas, been filled with work, but one thing that has stayed with me throughout the week is the feeling I managed to catch when we went on our Sunday trip. It was such a high for me to feel the crisp air, see ice (I am still excited about this fact!), it was just like a winter walk in my native town in Sweden.

The whole week, has all been about blue skies and frost on the lawn.

Swan

2008-12-10T09:27:00.005Z

No way, that I can come up with a "snow animal", like Akson. However, on our Sunday trip I was going to take a photo of the icy lake (with a beautiful mist), which was beautifully frambed by an old tree, when this guy came walking by...

So, I have ice and I have animal, not too bad for a photo from my part of the world, I think! ;)

For more OO, please check in with Akson .

Attention

2008-12-09T08:23:00.008Z

This photo is taken, using two different shades in my garden. The sun was just rising so the whole sky was lit up, however this leaf was in the shadow. It was also growing by the garden wall, so the background was even shadier and by closing in on the leaf and making sure all the focus points in the lens covered just the leaf, the camera gave it just the right contrast thanks to the frost and the shadow.

In January this year, I bought myself a camera. This was truly the beginning of a different way to look at my life. I was in a lot of pain, unwell at the time and my husband was away during the weeks and life was pretty hard. Rather than spilling out all my pain and anger here, I used my camera to turn quite a rotten day into a beautiful moment. I remember days when I just walked around the flat trying to find a little detail that I could use to turn my day into something beautiful. I tried to take photos of my children laughing or just a beautiful detail of our house. During spring, my health improved immensely thanks to my low carb life, which I started in april, but I still have my "daily urge" to view my life through the lens.

The camera has tought me to pay attention to the little details around me. I get truly happy by catching a beautiful little moment of the world around me and if the light outside is just right, I just have to go out and just stand still and look around me if I can find something that makes my heart leap a little extra. It's therapeutic.

I hope that you are having a great Tuesday. The weather here is cold, crisp and there is another day of blue skies and sun shine, so I am going to take the camera and children outside this afternoon and just enjoy them.

To view more attention (uppmärksamhet) contributions, click here.

Sunday trip

2008-12-08T16:06:00.004Z

Ice on the lake!

Yesterday we went to one of the city's national trust homes. I was soo excited because they were holding a Christmas open house for a couple of hours. The weather was so crisp and beautiful, there was ice (!!) on the little lake and absolutely stunning weather.

My disappointment didn't know any end to it when it turned out that I wasn't allowed to take any photos whatsoever in the house. It's all copyright... To be perfectly honest, I still don't get it, they keep a house in fantastic condition *noone is living there* and then open it up for 4 days and no photography is allowed. I would understand if no flash photography wasn't allowed, but no photography at all. I was soo disppointed. Desperately googling the rest of the day, I realized that ALL houses around my city has the same policy. *gaah*

But, it was a beautiful day and we had great fun playing orangutangs in the park instead. I also had my own little photo stroll around the lake when O had the kids, so it was all very worth the while going there.

So now I am puzzled with what to do with my Holiday Home Tour challenge. There is simply no houses open here. Shall I decorate my own house, go to a fancy department store or maybe a museeum? I am still figuring this out at the moment.

Numbers (Fototriss: Siffror)

2008-12-07T21:40:00.003Z

The Fototriss theme today is siffor, which means numbers. The only numbers in my archive, is house numbers, so that's what I contribute with today.

To see more number contritubions, please click here.

December Walk

2008-12-06T12:21:00.007Z

Yesterday, I had such a lovely little outing with J. We took a long stroll together. The weather was beautiful and she picked leaves, constantly chatting to me "look mummy, there is a pretty house" and then she stopped, so I could take a photo.

We spent 30 minutes just sitting on "my bench" and then we had coffe and hot chocolate at a nearby cafe.

Happy girl, but still with a little bit of a cold..

My baby is starting to grow up, we had a great girls' afternoon!

Yellow and Black

2008-12-05T10:28:00.004Z

Yellow and Black

The Friday colours of today are yellow and black. Just as I thought "I don't have anything yellow and black, maybe I'll pass this week!", I started to look through my little archive and saw a photo from July. I cropped out a part of the photo and *voila*: yellow and black!

Can anyone guess what this is? It is quite fun to "expore" a photo to see what details the camera has picked up. When taking this photo, I was going to take a photo of my son. We were at a cafeteria in Sweden (Lysekil) in July and we were waiting at the table for O to buy us some sandwiches and while waiting, I was taking some pictures of C, when I ended up taking some pictures with the focus on what he was holding in his hand instead of himself. So the picture above is just "cut out" (cropped) from the photo below.

To view more Yellow and Black contributions, click here.

Reflection: Beginning of December

2008-12-04T17:58:00.006Z

366 challenge: 111 Ball

This week, the days have been quite busy and chaotic. But all days have had one thing in common. Every evening, we have lit lots of candles in the living room and enjoyed some quiet time as a family with the few Christmas decorations that we have taken out (I think there will be more this weekend). Above i one of two pretty topiary trees that I bought last year.

To see more weekly reflections, please click here.

Frosted Ivy

2008-12-03T12:52:00.005Z

Frosted Ivy

*We had frost this morning!*

To view more Wordless Wednesday contributions, check in with Akson.

Close

2008-12-02T08:40:00.008Z

366 challenge: 247 Tradition

Today the Tuesday theme is nära, which means near or close. Christmas is near and celebrating Christmas with my family is very close to my heart, so here is a close-up of my advent light holder, decorated with coffee beans, cinnamon sticks and dried mango (the last ingredient is new to me, but works very well).

Advent is celebrated on the 4 Sundays before Christmas, where one candle is lit every Sunday up to Christmas. It is a mix of the start of the church year, where advent means arrival (symbolising the arrival of Christ), but since it sounds so similar to the Swedish word vänta as in wait, it nowadays symbolizise the wait for Christmas, or the day that Christ was born.

In Sweden the advent candle holder with 4 candles was only introduced in the late 1900th century, even though advent is much older than that being a fasting period to prepare for Christmas, however as most Christian traditions, it has evolved from a pagan tradition when people celebrated the Mid Winter Solstice, Yule, by lighting candles. The Swedish word for Christmas is also Jul..

To see more nära contributions, click here.

Fototriss - Trappor (Trio of photos: Stairs)

2008-12-01T14:54:00.005Z

366 challenge: Climbing

This is one of my favorite photos from this autumn. I had such a lovely day out with the children in October. C was helping J up these stairs and just as I took this shot, she looked back to check that I was also coming.

And a close up.

Snow in March in Sweden.

If you want to view more Fototriss contributions, please click here.

Advent Preparations

2008-11-30T14:49:00.005Z

366 challenge: 14 Wooden (bouquet)

Today our household is a busy one. I wish I had my advent candle holder ready to show you, but it is still to be decorated later today. We have started putting out some Christmas decorations in the house, though and it must be the earliest ever in our household *and I am a little proud of myself*!

No santas are spread around the house yet, just some glimmering items and candles, lots of candles. I put the electric advent lights out in the windows yesterday, but not all windows, I will take a shot when it's all done.

This, little cone bouquet has made it out of my Christmas Boxes and with the day light gone by 3, I hurried out in the garden and I managed to borrow some of the last light of the day to take this shot.

The rest of the family is out buying ingredients for some baking I indend to do this afternoon.

I long for tonight, when the house will smell of soft gingerbread cookies, mulled wine and we have decorated our Avent candle holder.

I wish you a wonderful 1st of Advent.

Pink and White

2008-11-28T17:45:00.003Z

366 challenge: 363 delicate

Pink & White

To view more contributions, please click here.

Christmas Gifts Preparations

2008-11-28T15:46:00.010Z

To write about Christmas preparations in November is almost hilarious, if you know me. We usually miss 1st of Advent (in Sweden we light one candle every Sunday (4 Sundays) before Christmas). It is a beautifull tradition, I'll tell you more about it this coming Sunday.

For years, we have moved house in December, so the whole Christmas decorating part naturally has been delayed. But this year I am all set!

A tradition that I started when J was newborn is to give my children a pretty Christmas decor each year. The first year, I bought them a snow globe each. J was just 2.5years last Christmas and had not seen her snowglobe since January that year, when we packed away all our Christmas things, and she started jumping up and down shouting "hnö, hnö!" (which menas snö/snow)

Last Christmas I gave them a pretty Christmas bauble for the tree and this year, I think I am going to get them Christmas cups. It's great having little traditions, that build up over the years, I think.

To read other Show and Tell contributions this week, look at the following blogs: Nilla,Simone,Anna,Desiree,Annika, Anne,Petra ,Anna-Saltis ,Millan, AuroraBuddha, Anki, Lullun, Marianne,Victoria, Susanne, Lia, Cecilia, Leopardia, Anne-Marie, Marina, Marie, Strandmamman, M.K.B , Ulrika, Jemaya, Nina, Kicki, Barbamorsan, Emma,MiaD, Tätorts-Anna, Maisuoi, Inga-Britt
Ny fredagsbloggare:
Lena

In Bed

2008-11-27T11:05:00.004Z

Yesterday, when I was doing my wordless wednesday blog-round, I found a challenge that really appealed to me. 3barnsmamman has started a new photo challenge called Torsdagsreflektion (Thursday's Reflection), which means that you reflect on your week and post a photo that represents your week. It can be something personal, an event or something that has been going on all week.

My week has really all been about being in bed. I caught a really bad cold together with my daughter and husband (C has thankfully breezed through the week!), so we have pretty much done everything in bed. Having yogurt, watching tv, reading books etc. Today my daughter is better, so she is playing with her brother who has taken such good care of us over the past 3 days.

My thoughts today go out to 3barnsmamman, who has taken her daughter to hospital with mononukleos (körtelfeber). I hope they can help Big J to get better!

Wordless Wednesday: Lavender Gate

2008-11-26T12:10:00.007Z

366 challenge: 46 Iron works

One last flash back from a lovely summer's day. To view more Wordless Wednesday contributions, please check in with Akson and Nejma.

7 things about me

2008-11-26T09:05:00.009Z

I have been challenged by iki. Thank you for picking me, I love challenges!

The Rules:
- Link to the person that have challenged you and add these rules to you blog.
- Reveal seven things about yourself, both ordinary or/and crazy.
- Challenge seven new people by adding their name and links in the end of the post.
- Let the challenged people know that they have been challenged, by posting a comment on their blog.

7 things about me:

1. I love the colour purple. Really dark purple and if it is also made from velvet, I completely melt.

2. My hair is blond and my eyes are brown-greenish.

3. I always "tie" my shopping bags into a little knot, so that they fit neatly into our cupboard, which makes my husband crazy having to struggle with a knot everytime he needs a shopping bag.

4. One would think from no 3, that I am a tidy person, but I am not. If I enter a room, odds are that it will be chaos in there any time soon.

5. My weakest characteristcs of all is waiting, especially if I am waiting for someone else to make up their mind about something that I want. It is literally destroying me.

6. My "obsessive-compulsive thing" *you know like having to close a closet door 4 times before it's properly closed or counting something* is the feeling that I am attached to an elastic band. If I go to the store, I have to walk on "the same side" of a lamp post both on my way to the store as well as back from the store, otherwise the rubber band get's tangled...

7. I am really good at making pancakes.

I challenge: Cissi, Dossis, Amelia, Annika, Luxlatte, Anette, Barbamorsan

Do you want to see our guest room?

2008-11-25T18:43:00.006Z

During my EFIT-post on Saturday, I promised you photos of how our guest room turned out. To start with it looked like this:

Quite a horrible room. Ugly curtains, a lamp that had seen better days... This far, we have only used it to store boxes.

With a light grey blind from IKEA instead of the curtains, the room feels brighter with cleaner lines. The table, was rescued from O's parent's basement when we moved in together 13 years ago. The table lamp is from IKEA as well as the ceiling lamp *a bargain at £14.99*! The bed is IKEA as well..

IKEA Hemnes mirror and IKEA vases makes the Magnolia walls look cleaner and brighter.

We also put one of our sofas in here as we have ordered a Kramfors Fräsig Brun *giggle, it's a very corny Swedish description, sort of how you said cool in the 60s..* leather sofa for our living room. It feel almost a bit weird having "grown out of" our first leather suit. This is the only expensive piece of furniture that we have bought together, and hearing myself say to C: "Mum and Dad bought these chairs when we first lived together." made me feel very grown up. Anyway, we'll see if I can live with my Fräsiga brown leathersofa or if I will be sneaking into our guest room when I need a good relaxed moment...

oh, and the pillow, quilt and lamp is IKEA as well...

Tuesday Theme - Golden

2008-11-25T10:26:00.007Z

366 challenge: 261 Gold

Today's Tuesday Theme is golden. And what is more golden than autumn leaves? This is a beautiful autumn day in the park. The fact that this photo is taken on my birthday and I got to spend it with my family, makes it even more golden.

If you want to me more golden contributions, have a look here.

EFIT (One Photo Per Hour)

2008-11-22T17:44:00.010Z

This is my EFIT for Monday November 12. I was just going to post this when I realized that today is the next EFIT (which I completely missed), so I hope you are ok to view my last EFIT day instead. Today I am going out to the countryside to meet with an agent *work* and what better day to bring my camera along?

7.45 A last touching up of my clothes with the iron.

8.45 I am on my way out of city, sitting in a traffic jam, but not really bothered, I am enjoying the off-kids time, singing along to the radio and enjoying the beautiful weather...

9.45 I arrive (amazingly enough, I found my way here!) 15 minutes early and I take a little stroll around the house. There is a pretty church opposite the hall, so I decide to go to the church yard afterwards with my camera.

10.45 Still in my meeting in this house.

12.00 Meeting is finished and I take a stroll around the village church. I took lots of pictures, but this was one of the first. It's a bit overexposed, because I stood under this massive tree, but I still think it's a pretty photo.

13.00 On my way back to the city, on small winding roads in the English countryside. Snapped in a hurry.

14.00 Living a low-carb (LCHF) life since April this year, I stopped at a petrol station and bought my lunch. A fruit corner without the fruit corner *ie just the yogurt*, full milk and Cathedral City cheesesticks without the dip.

15.20 Coming out of the hospital entrence, been to my ENT consultant (Ear Nose and Throat), discussing the results of the CT scan of my sinuses. (Looks OK, he thinks that I have an inflammed nerve)

16.20 Back home and I we turn our attention to the store room that is now going to be turned into a nice guest room. Not a pretty sight to begin with, but I will take some photos tomorrow to show you how it turned out.

19.00 The rest of the day and evening, we work on clearing the guest room, so not much more happening. Part from O finding my mobile phone! He found it in a removal box, from our last move...I haven't seen it since July 2007 and now it turns up in November 2008! *Sofia, I can receive SMS again!!*

I hope you have enjoyed my EFIT, if you want to view more EFIT contributions, please click here. Välkommen att skriva en kommentar på svenska om du vill! :)

Show and Tell: Jewellery

2008-11-21T20:41:00.006Z

This week's theme on the Show and Tell is jewellery. I am recycling my ring photo from early summer, as these are almost the only pieces of jewellery that I have.

It's not that I don't like jewellery, I love it! I think it's more the "baby years" that makes anything that a baby can pull or get hooked on, is more a nuisance than necessarily something that enhances your life.

My sister in law (to be) asked me the other week when they were visiting why I didn't use earrings and I replied, because of the baby..she looked at my 3year-old sitting with hair-clips in her hair putting a jigsaw of 24 pieces together...and we had quite a good laugh.

I realize that I am starting to have more interest in clothes nowadays and I realize that maybe it's time to have some jewellery in my life again. *nudge, nudge to O if he reads this...*

The rings on the photo are my engagement ring and my wedding ring. We did the english way, when getting rings, so I got the one with the stone for our engagement and we exchanged the more plain, textured rings when we got married.

To read other Show and Tell contributions this week, look at the following blogs: Nilla,Simone,Anna,Desiree,Annika, Anne,Petra ,Anna-Saltis ,Millan ,AuroraBuddha,Anki,Lullun, Marianne,Victoria,Susanne,Lia,Cecilia,Leopardia, Anne-Marie, Marina, Marie, Strandmamman, M.K.B , Ulrika, Jemaya, Nina, Kicki, Barbamorsan, Emma,MiaD, Tätorts-Anna, Maisuoi, Inga-Britt
Ny fredagsbloggare:
Lena

The Park

2008-11-08T22:48:00.003Z

It's been a rainy day here today and I've been locked in the house with all our removal boxes. We have finally *after 2 months of trying to figure this out* managed to decide how we want to use our rooms. The master bedroom has a very strange layout, there is not wall where a bed wider than 90cm can fit. So we have been thinking and thinking some more on how to solve our layout. It was such a relief and I can finally start ordering wardrobes and some smarter boxes for all our storage stuff.

I am hoping for some clear crisp weather tomorrow, I long for a walk in the park, it is so beautiful with all the colours. Here we are, the first autumn-looking day in mid October. It was actually a really hot day with 25degrees, but with some lovely leaves on the ground.

Bench

2008-11-07T19:32:00.005Z

366 challenge: 40 Bench

I've had quite a hard day, so I am not going to pour all the details over you. This bench is however standing on a favorite spot of mine. I love sitting on this bench, and several years ago, when we were newlyweds, we drew up all our plans and goals *ie, we were sitting on this spot figuring out what things in life was most important to us*, and I would go so far as to say that without this spot in our lives, we wouldn't live the life we are living today.

In early October, I took my children to this spot. They brought some toys and they had a good 2 hours play by the trees and I sat on "my bench" and just enjoyed the view. When I stood up, I turned around and noticed the wording on the bench. I don't know why I haven't done so before.

I wonder who Cornelia was. Maybe she came to her decision to go to San Francisco, sitting on this very bench?

Enjoying Halloween

2008-11-06T21:41:00.002Z

J looking a bit like "Lisabeth" in Madicken *Swedish series*

We had a great Halloween. Our street turned into Trick or Treat Lane! We weren't sure that the children really wanted to go out trick or treating. C, loving everything scary, have had night mares lately and the closer to Halloween we came, the less he talked about going out in the dark...

It all turned out really well, because children was constantly ringing our door bell and my scary cat princess and pirate was fully occupied with opening our front door and offering candy and balloons to the scary creatures outside.

Cat Princess and Fierce Pirate

Dear Brother

Preparations

2008-10-31T14:45:00.003Z

366 Challenge: 16 Handmade

Brother and fiance arrived safely last night and this morning we all had a long breakfast together. The children received two jigsaw puzzles, C a world map and J a prinsess. Both were extatic and I know a certain uncle and antie, who probably will spend a substantial amount of this weekend doing jigsaw puzzles.

After a relaxed morning, I found myself alone in the house for a while. My brother visiting some friends of his and me sending my soon to be sister-in-law into the city with direction on how she would find a friend, she was going to have lunch with. O went with the children to gym class, so I had a blissful little hour in the middle of the day. All to myself. *nice*

Now, we are preparing for our much anticipated Halloween party tonight. It's "just" us 6, but if you are 3 and 6years old, getting the undivided attention of 4 grown-ups for a full evening with games, competition and dressing up, is heaven. At least for my two, so we are all looking forward to our Halloween evening.

C is decorating halloween biscuits beside me this very moment, and I thought *ok, they might not be completely handmade, since I bought a kit*, but I like the photo, so it will be in my 366.

Happy Halloween!

Anticipation

2008-10-30T08:14:00.004Z

Today our house is buzzing. We are washing, shopping, cleaning and organizing for my brother and his fiance who are arriving tonight. Their flight arrives at 11pm, so the children thinks it's a bit magic. They will go to sleep in the evening and out of nowhere, uncle and auntie, will be here in the morning!

C and J has turned into a little welcome committee. They are making little presents for our guests and little hands are busy making welcome cards.

Exotic

2008-10-29T14:23:00.007Z

366 challenge: 62 Exotic

This morning, I woke up to news headlines like "the city suffers arctic blast". Being Swedish I can't help but being a little bit amuzed by all the drama every time there is a cold spell around. I remember the first time I heard about these arctic conditions that was about to hit our city. It was in year 2000 and both O, my brother and I, switched on the news to hear about the terrible snowfall, only to be greeted by a News presenter standing at a supermarket parking lot surrounded with ca 1/2 inch (1.5cm) of snow, completely overexcited!

I realize that in a country where "winter wheels" (mandatory special wheels for your car, to be used during the coldest months) hardly exist, any degrees below zero is not to be taken lightly, but still. I can't help but giggle a little bit.

We didn't even notice this arctic blast. Apparently our city had it's first October snow in 74 years. I would have loved to see that, but we went to bed early to watch tv and slept with our window open all night *without noticing these arctic conditions* and this morning, I did my usual bare foot tip-toeing around our little garden patch.

Degrees below zero might be exotic to my fellow city residents, but to me, my garden palm tree is exotic.

Tisdagstema: Grå (Tuesday's Theme: Grey)

2008-10-28T12:43:00.005Z

366 challenge: 196 Fog

I am trying out a new challenge today. Tuesday theme is another blogg challenge, I see popping up here and there. I am amazed by all the lovely people that I "meet" through all challenges I participate in, you have no idea how you make my day with your kind comments. :)

This week's theme is grå, which is Swedish for the colour grey. My contribution shows the view from my bedroom window, a grey foggy morning in February this year, when I lived in Edinburgh. I really miss the beauty of the Edinburgh New Town. It was an amazing thing to have right outside your window.

If you want to view more Tisdags tema contributions, please view here. (vill du kommentera på svenska är du välkommen att göra så.) :)

Standstill

2008-10-27T20:01:00.004Z

366 challenge: 245 Leaf

I've been in bed now for 3 days with a vicious bug. At first I was completely stressed out by the fact that all my weekend work wasn't going to be done, but now, into my 3rd day of sleeping, dozing and watching feel good series on tv, I can see why the body sometimes must say "Hey, get some REST!".

Hope that you find your time to take a little break every now and then. Don't do it thinking about what to make for dinner tomorrow, or if the school bag is all set...

Try to have some me time every now and then. Whether it's knitting, chatting to a friend on the phone or *like me* dream myself away to my favorite tv show. Currently I am watching Men in Trees, it's so sweet! *can't believe they pulled the plug on that show!*

Anyway, it is good for the soul. Don't forget to take care of yourself.

Fototriss - Sötma (Trio of photos: Sweetness)

2008-10-26T16:38:00.005Z

Strawberries and cream

366 challenge: 208 Sugar

This week's challenge for Fototriss is Sötma, which means sweetness. If anyone is interested in the chocolate cake, here is the recipe for this lovely low carb cake. (I have reused my photo from when I first made this cake in June.)

To view more Fototriss contributions, please click here.

Show and Tell: If I could travel in time, I would..

2008-10-25T09:51:00.006+01:00

366 challenge: My Daughter's Eye

Funnily enough, I have been thinking about telling you about his. I did sort of go back in time a while ago.

I'll start by letting you know about me and my mother. My mother had quite a hard childhood. that, I have understood during the past years, have put it's mark on our relationship. She had a particularly bad relationship with her mother and that sort of spilled out into hers and mine.

Anyway, when I turned 30, I put my foot down, letting her know that from now on, I was not a garbage bin, in which she could throw all her horrible feelings and experiences. I was neither an emotional punch bag for all bad things other people had made her endure. This didn't exactly go down with a treat and the years after that was a bit rocky, but I tried to stay firm, letting her know that with my children in the picture, I really expected some respect from her.

2 years ago she called me. On her own birthday, she called me, crying at 10.30am. It was as if she couldn't bear the thought of noone calling her. We had a great talk, she told me about her life and the people around her and we spoke about our relationship, why she had never been there for me. I let her know that ALL I wanted from her was for her to show interest in my children. I wasn't going to "give a good word for her", which meant that she would have to build up her relationship with my children by approaching them herself. (I hadn't said anything bad either,
I have a lovely grandmother myself and I think it's a fantastic relationship to have)

After that phone call, I haven't heard anything for almost 2 years. Not on my son's 5th birthday, not on my daughter's 2nd birthday, not at Christmas, not at my 35th birthday, not at my son's 6th birthday, not at my daughter's 3rd birthday.

I have been doing a lot of soul searching regarding my mother and around one year ago, I came to the conclusion that I was ok with the fact that we didn't have any relationship. By not contacting her and by giving her "an ultimatum", I had to go through the thought "what if something happens to her during our time of not speaking", and I came to the conclusion that I was at peace with my actions. However hard I was searching within myself, I didn't even miss her. Not one bit. I couldn't even bring myself to be sad by the fact that we didn't have a relationship.

I have had trouble remembering a really good moment between us. We didn't really have any, because she became ill when I was 13. She wasn't interested in me, she never was. She was the kind of mother who was in charge of the school parent association, who started up youth clubs for the children in our village, but funnily enough, she was never there for me. She wasn't interested in who I was. That's probably why it was so hard to realize, that when I had children,
she chose other children before mine.

Anyway, *this is getting long*, about 1week before my birthday, I had the weirdest dream. It wasn't so much as a dream, but a memory, that I was reliving. I dreamed that I was walking beside my mother in a park. When I woke up, I was all emotional and I really remembered how my mother was when I was about 2-4years old. I remember how we walked through the park, holding hands. We were singing and she was smiling and looking at me. I remember that look now. It is such a strong memory for me, and I recognize it. I remember her smile and how she looked at me. Happy.

Maybe she was thinking of me really hard that night, or maybe it's just my love for my own 3year-old daughter, which made me reach into myself and made me able to take this emotional step forward *within myself* in my relationship with my mother. Maybe this text comes out flat, as I am trying to describe my dream, but this is what I came to think of when I saw this week's theme for the Tell and Show.

I've been time travelling and I revisited myself as a 3year old little girl. :)

A couple of days later, she called me on my birthday. The first phone call in 47 months.

We had a really good talk.

To read other Show and Tell contributions this week, look at the following blogs: Nilla,Simone,Anna,Desiree,Annika, Anne,Petra ,Anna-Saltis ,Millan ,AuroraBuddha,Anki,Lullun, Marianne,Victoria,Susanne,Lia,Cecilia,Leopardia, Anne-Marie, Marina, Marie, Strandmamman,
M.K.B , Ulrika, Jemaya, Nina, Kicki, Barbamorsan

Desire

2008-10-24T08:52:00.004+01:00

366 challenge: 27 Desire

What a morning! O has done a long row of nights and mornings with the children, so last night I asked him to wake me if J came down early in the morning, so he could have a sleep in. This morning she woke up at 7.40. A really good time, I think. I was picturing myself cosying up with her in the sofa, a cup of coffee and laptop. Just me and her. A quiet moment.

We started the morning with some exercise. A couple of rounds from top to bottom of the stairs. There is a drawback of living in a narrow townhouse, there is a lot of stairs (!) and when you first forget your bottle, then your little blanket and finally Kitty the cuddly cat, there is a little bit too much stair climbing for me.

Anyway, when J was sitting comfortably, she started making "tummy bug noises" (she has been unwell now for a couple of days), so I ran for a bucket, remembering all scrubbing labour of the last couple of days. After another 20 minutes we realized that it was false alarm.

I made my coffee and my hopes for that quiet computer moment was slowly filling me again. Just as I grabbed my coffee, a little too tired, I managed to spill quite a lot of it on the dining room floor. As I was wiping it up with a towel, I notice a whole trail of nasty stains that the cat have done on the floor. She must have caught something on her foot. So I get some cleaning stuff and started some more thorough cleaning of the floor. Finished, my thoughts of my cup of coffee is back and I put the cleaning products in the cupboard again.

As I walk through the dining room, again in a really good mood, I completely forget the wet floor and *squat* manage to make some sort of split and bump my knee hard on the wooden floor.

Now I have managed to limp my way to the sofa, my coffe is cold, but I am going to try to sip it up before C comes. I can hear him upstairs. The commotion of the day has started.

I wish I had one of those summer mornings in Sweden, when I could sneak out into my little garden patch and pick some wild strawberries...