Fabriken Furillen

photo by Johan Hellström

This is a snapshot of the wonderful hotel Furillen in winter ...

Next spring though, things are going to be different! 

Want to find out what?

Come on by ;)

xoxo

1/3 of the new Furillen team :)

I heart Leva

Sometimes, all it takes to make me happy is a long walk, a cup of coffee or tea and a cinnamon bun.

A new and better camera would probably make me even happier, so that's currently on the top of my wish list, but for now this will do :)

For my Dutch & Flemish-speaking friends :)

A website made by an environmentally inspired mum of 2 who made it her mission to guide us through the growing eco-jungle and help us discover the world of fair trade, organic, recycled and hand made products and gadgets through her own exceptional, carefully assembled selection.





And "De Groene Prinses" or "The Green Princess" ...
Green inspiration for all (vegetarian) food lovers.
Loads of yummy recipes and pretty pictures.
And I bet google translate could help those who find the Dutch language a little too challenging ;-)

How to have your garden and eat it.

Anyone who's ever watched an episode of "Earth-to-Alys" will agree with me: She sure knows how to make gardening sound and look incredibly fun :-)

With her new book she wants to inspire everybody to grow their own food, and she got me! Even people like me who don't have a garden don't really have an excuse not to grow any edible plants.

(note to self: start soon!)

When Alys Fowler lived in New York she grew vegetables on her fire escape!! How's that for inspiration?

Inconvenient Truth

The winter's on its way out and must have heard me remark last week that "Hey, I didn't get sick!"
I'm hardly ever really sick (I just have a fever now so even though I feel like crap I'm still not sick, really) so I often wonder why I have this list of "movies to see when I'm ill".
Anyway, I do, and on the top of this list since a very long time was Al Gore's Oscar winning documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth'.
The reason it stayed on the list for such a long time was because I thought I knew everything Al Gore wanted to share with the world ... turns out I didn't, and turns out I'm more like the frog he talks about than I care to admit ...

So here's to all you people who haven't seen it yet. Watch it now! Don't wait until you're sick!

www.climatecrisis.net

Paper Collages

Lena Wolff's paper quilt project and her paper collages will serve as inspiration next time I'm in a creative mood!
A house isn't a home without personal touches. And what can be more personal my very own creations?

I wonder how much of other people's work you're allowed to use/borrow without it being labelled plagiarism ...

The Cove

Yesterday, as part of my Swedish course, we were asked to talk about something that had happened in the world, something remarkable that we wanted to share with the others.

Some talked about Tunisia, others about the floods in Australia, or the discovery of a possible cure for Tinitus.

I talked about what happens in Taiji.

I talked about Ric O'barry and The Cove, his shocking documentary.

One of my classmates is Japanese ... she had no idea what I was talking about. Dolphin slaughter? Mercury? 

Serves to show ...

For those of you who also have no clue what I'm talking about, check this out:

Wanna do something about it?

Take Part!

Loyal Loot

Yet another post dedicated to something so beautiful that I wish I had (at least) one for my self ...

Beautiful beautiful bowls made of locally reclaimed trees
by Loyal Loot Collective

Like so many wonderful things (think maple syrup!) these come from Canada, but you can order them online @
The good egg shop

Or you can post a picture on your blog and get happy just by looking at it every now and then :)

I LOVE!!

The Horsey. Photograph: Eungi Kim/designboom.com

As a kid I used to pretend my bike was a horse ... I even gave it a name! But why oh why didn't I come up with this idea?

Slushy snow and dreamy thoughts

The snow started melting and beautiful white Gotland is slowly turning back to its less sparkly state.
There's nothing beautiful about brown snow & slush I'm afraid ...
I wouldn't have minded minus degrees & heaps of snow until we leave Sweden on the 1st of Feb to come back to an early spring in March, but I guess you don't always get what you want.

To keep spirits high I selected a few of the winter pictures me and my sis took over the Christmas holidays, most of them taken on the wonderful island of Furillen:

A New Year ... New Resolutions ...

Like so many others I also have my little set of new years resolutions such as read more, take more pictures, find joy in little things, ... the regular things really ... but I found a little extra inspiration in some quotes of philosopher Immanuel Kant.

"Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law." You can't be truly happy with yourself if you don't act according to what you think is right, right? "Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness." And the right thing is not always the easiest or most fun thing ... but the easiest option is not always the most satisfying either, right?

"Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end." Wouldn't our world and our every day life be a little bit more beautiful if we could all treat each other with respect?

"He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals."  And can't we extend this to our friends the animals too?

"Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another."  Let's not always follow the pack ... why not start to think for ourselves and make our own decisions?

"It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honorably." 

Nevertheless, I wish all of you a happy and honorable 2011.

Enjoy life!