Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Winter Jam



When the grass crunches under your feet you know winter is here.

It's definitely winter on Gotland,
but still there are things to be harvested!
The other day I took in the last of my kale (decorated with ice crystals!) to transform it into a pie,
and picked a bowl full of rosehip buds.

A word of caution (since most recipes don't stress this fact enough):
you need a LOT of patience to make rosehip jam.

I watched about a dozen TED talks during the process of cutting each of the rosehips in half and scooping out the seeds,
sighed a LOT,
was ready to give up about half way and toss out the rest,
but persisted & succeeded! 

The amount of struggle directly correlates to the appreciation of the result.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

The Gratitude Experiment



Every now and again I catch myself dwelling on the things that suck in my life.
I've even considered turning my little blog into a venting space for my irritations, sadness & anger. I mean, life is multi-faceted, why should I keep myself from having my own little pity party just to keep up the good cheer?

The thing is, this blog has always been my happy place, even in harder times, and today I decided it would be such a shame to infect it with negativity. 


I will appreciate my moments of gloom for what they are, but not give them more importance than what they deserve either.

In the honour of Thanksgiving, I will learn to be grateful for the disturbances in my happiness level,
because aren't those exactly what makes us realise how extremely lucky we are to be living this thing we call life? 


According to this article, cultivating an “attitude of gratitude” has been linked to better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life and kinder behaviour toward others, including romantic partners.

If that isn't something worth the effort I don't know what is!


Friday, October 31, 2014

Water under the bridge


I'm starting yet a new chapter in my life.
The past 2 years now belong to the past.

New beginnings always start with an ending.
This one doesn't sound like a happy one, but in a way it is.


The past 2 years have been filled with memories to last a lifetime.
A rollercoaster long-distance relationship, many many late night phone calls, fabulous week-end getaways, the longing, the excitement of meeting each other at airports ...
as well as our fair share of doubts, fights, too many cancelled plane tickets and changed plans ...

but we made it through, survived the messy first year, laughed about it all, moved in with each other, embarked on the most amazing trip ever, made it home safe, loved it, worked hard, most often side by side, the way we liked it, the way we had become used to.

We literally spent pretty much all of our days together for an entire year.

It was nice. 

Great at times. 
And I often wonder what would have become of us had our dreams for the future not been so different ...
Pointless really. They are. Very different.
Now at least we can finally start working towards what we really want.

The memories of our 2 year long adventure will always remain. 

All the rest is water under the bridge.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Life






You know the feeling when your head is too busy with daily life and too full with random thoughts that there's no room for anything else?
I usually write things down to make space for new things 
but sometimes I can't find the words to describe the things I want to "extract" from my mind 
and they stay in there whirling around until they find peace.

There was no room for new things in my head the last couple of months.
There was no peace either ...

When I flew to Belgium a few days ago 
to be with a dear friend who lost someone very important to her 
I didn't know that being away, being with her and going to the funeral, however heartbreaking it was,
would bring me peace.
The truth is that thinking about death almost forces you to think about life.

I bought a new notebook and started writing. 



Saturday, August 9, 2014

Home

Listening to a random playlist, "I feel home" by O.A.R started playing, right as I was about to start writing.

"I feel home when I see the faces that remember my own
I feel home when I'm chillin outside with the people I know
I feel home, and that's just what I feel
Home to me is reality and all I need is something real, I feel home"


I can't get over how nice it is to feel home somewhere.
And even though me and J are already talking about our next travels,
right now it's home we want to be.

A week ago being home got even more fun, because that's when we got this little furball :)
Hector, the newest addition to the family!


In the picture above he's staring at the lens cap dangling from my camera - it's actually pretty difficult to frame him awake & not moving too much :)




See? :D

For those who follow me on Instagram. Sorry for the cat picture overload ... I can't help it. :)

Monday, July 21, 2014

Bungenäs



Pretty much exactly five years have gone by since I first set foot on Gotland,
the place that is now my home.
I've lived here for almost 4 years and there seems to be no end to new places to discover.
I live on a magical island!

Yesterday was spent exploring this old limestone quarry that later turned into a military training facility.
Although it is far from a natural landscape with it's deep water-filled quarries and other remains of industrial activity, it is nice that the military stepped aside so that us mere mortals can enjoy it instead :)


Sunday, July 6, 2014

A little house by the sea



One of the reasons why we haven't had much time for things outside of work this spring:
our first renovation project! 
We're not entirely finished (is a house ever?) but the rest can wait until after the summer.
Today we were there with one single purpose: to enjoy the view!





Sunday, June 22, 2014

Pictures & Routines

Seemingly insignificant photos can bring back so many memories of a specific moment in time.
What looks like just another picture to you can mean a whole lot more to someone else.
I think that might be why I have unlimited amounts of random pictures saved on my computer and external hard disks that I just can't part with. 


The picture above reminds me of the third edition of our yearly old school festival. I didn't even take it myself, but it reminds me of all the time we spent shopping, preparing & decorating, of a possible brief moment of irritation wondering why we even bother ...
And then the first guests arrived :)
Of course there will be a 4th edition!


This picture is taken in our vegetable patch, an experiment that grows a little in size every year. 
I'm not the best at taking care of plants - mine have to survive regular periods of neglect - but so far there haven't been too many casualties.
I'm still optimistic about the harvest - plants seem to be very forgiving.


These two pictures were taken during a lovely little roadtrip to the south of the island. 
It's so easy to get stuck in the routine of working too much and doing too little fun stuff, but it's really easy to break out of it too. In this case it only took a car ride.


Another really easy way to break the workweek-routine is inviting people over for BBQ-nights during the week, for no reason at all.
These pretty flowers grow all around our terrace. They will hopefully witness a lot of dinner parties this summer!

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Throwback Thursday







We've been home for 2 months now and I'm finally getting around to ordering prints of our holiday pictures :)
I'm completely amazed at how fast time flies. School's out and the tourists are slowly but surely taking over the island again. What happened to the spring?

We definitely underestimated the amount of work that was waiting for us when we got back but we're finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Soon it's time for some time off again: Swedish summer shall be enjoyed to the fullest!






Monday, June 2, 2014

Dad & his Girls


I love these photos so much I decided they deserve a place on my blog.
Happy Monday!





Monday, May 12, 2014

Combining the good with the good.



The 10th of May a lot of clean-up events were held throughout Europe.
Our beach clean up initiative Trashless Gotland has been more or less on hold since we left the island in November, so this weekend was a great time to kickstart the season.
I love going for walks on the beach, and picking up trash has always been part of that, but this time I was most excited about the fire & the marshmallows that were waiting for us when we got back :)


Thursday, May 8, 2014

In Transition


Lots of green in my life right now!
Spring flowers, a lot of sowing and repotting, leaves breaking out of their buds, wild garlic & wild leak gathering (makes the most perfect pesto & soups!) and the usual amazement at what comes out of the little tiny seeds I put in the soil not so long ago.

I went to a screening of this movie earlier this week.
Inspiring to say the least!

From the website:

"In a world that is awash with gloom, here is a story of hope, ingenuity and the power of growing vegetables in unexpected places."