LONG READS, BUT TAKE THE TIME

In today's hectic life and it's social media climate, where you don't always have the time to sit down and read the paper properly but still have the time to scroll, and a lot of what the news feed feeds you is articles ("articles") that seem to just consist of screenshots of how people commented on something on twitter, I have come to appreciate a well written article even more than before, and the chance to get a moment to sit down and read something un-interrupted.

Also, I should learn to make shorter sentences.

Many people are having a holiday this weekend, and here is some recommended reading to accompany your Easter flowers, chocolate eggs and wine (well, that is what I am having at least).

These are two different stories but they share a common theme - the migration of peole, but foremost: putting a name on a number in the statistics, a backstory behind a short mention in an article, or a story to someone with no mention anywhere at all. 

So I give you one story for each day of Easter:

1. The Wetsuit man (dagbladet.no)

This came out a few years ago at the height of the so called refugee wave. I have returned to this text every now and then.  It is a captivating and important read.

2. The Case of Jane Doe Ponytail (The New Yorker)

There is a person and a story behind every "-Doe".

3. The New Slave Trade (Buzzfeed News)
"Inside The Country Where You Can Buy A Black Man For $400".


Pictures 1. by me 2. royalty free stock image

Read More

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW - AND SO IT WAS SUMMER

When it gets warm, and like now, when it STAYS warm, I keep on being amazed by how pleasant it feels. And by how light is is. You forget that during the darker months. Every time. The air feels nice and smooth and everything is green and growing and I am hoping it will stay like this until September (instead of waiting trough those short summer months of almost-there disappointments forcing you to pack a jacket with you wherever you go, like the two last summers turned out. Weather - we are at it here again...).

Everything is green and blooming here now.  I think it has never been this warm in May for such a long period here before. Woop!

Even our house is getting naked!

The summer lambs are back on our meadows.


And underneath my window the apple tree is blooming for a few moments still.

Read More

DIRT & DIAMONDS

I just drove my husband out to his tractor on the field to work. It is so dry and dusty everything gets coated in a layer of dirt. And I laughed a bit at me driving trough the fields because that was that one thing I never saw myself doing earlier in life.

Never say never and all that.

My nails still look like this though, and that won't change.

Read More

MY TOP-5 LISTS

For the moment.
Apart from the daily to-do list(s). And apart from the weekly and monthly ones as well.

I am a total list-person. I write lists on my phone, on the back of receipts and opened envelopes and random A4's around the house and in multiple text files. And in email drafts. Lists are the foundations of how all practical (and less practical) parts my life is organised. Sometimes I write the same list a couple of times, to get to go over things again (or because it's enjoyable if it's a list of fun things) or because it feels like it's one step closer to be done that way. Ha!

So, here's my "top five" lists for the moment

1. List of lists to be made.
Yes, for reals.


2. Movies I want to be able to catch while they still run at theatres.


I really want to see Moonlight.

This is a constant one, that comes and goes, and that seldom gets anything checked off because work and kids and life and all that. But this winter we managed to see one movie with Eddi, so I've given new hope to actually seeing a couple more!

Also bubblin' under:
Books I want to read (I'd like to read far more than I do nowadays but feel I don't have the time. Hell, internet!)
Shows I want to watch (And no, these two are in no way connected. Ehrm...)


3. Things to renovate at home -

including separate lists of:
-wallpapers I want to use
Turns out there are more of those than walls. And it's good most of my lists are a slow process because this changes one throughout the years.
-storage; how to organise what and where
(this never ends)
-interior details to add after the hard work is done (the one you'd like to dig into immediately; fuck the hard work-part)

This set of lists is constant, because an old house will always need something, but is now back in the top-list segment, as things will kind of, somehow, finally start happening over here for reals soon!


4.  Things to grow in the garden

Because what if, this year, for reals.
It's a fun one though. Let's see if we make things happen big(-ger) this year, and all trough the summer...


5. Blog posts to write

This would make a book by now, all the unwritten ones.
If there's a hashtag #toooldtopublish here's where it comes to use.

Are you a list-writing person? Are your lists rather constant or do you get to check things off?


(Online source for top photo: vintage.es. No known original source for the final photo.)

Read More

THAT ONE ANNUAL POST ABOUT SPRING

I guess we are at that point of the year again when small whispers and hints about a possible arriving spring start showing up in blogs on the northern hemisphere.  That, and the time when I start mentioning that I probably should wash my windows... But it's a big thing here, always, when the long winter ends and the light starts coming back (and it easily sounds all Game of Thrones when you talk about that..). We're at the yo-yo season where snow melts and returns again and those lighter shoes in the closet start getting restless but will have to wait. But at least we do have more light; longer days.

Like many others, I often get an urge to decorate and fix things up at home with the arrival of spring. Not really happening this year, as everything looks like shit still; we live in a labyrinth of ikea-bags and boxes after the move away from the city flat last November. The only decent looking and thus bearable (plus photographable) room is the kitchen, which of course means it is doomed to look like shit as well, because that's where everyone hangs out and leaves their stuff.

But it's the thought that counts (sort of, sometimes) and I tried my best and brought home a new pretty orchid, cherry tree branches and lots and lots of fruit for those more fresh springy vibes.

It worked.

Read More

HEARTS

It's still Valentine's Day for a while out there somewhere!

Here's a small collection of hearts from earlier years.

Hope you had a good Valentine's Day and remember that you can actually have one all year round, remembering your friends and loved ones no matter what date. Sometimes just a small message to someone you haven't had the time to meet or chat up with in a long time can be a wonderful thing ♥

Read More

FOR THE LAST TIME

At the beginning of this month, on my way to the airport (everything is about multitasking and combining two things these days) I stopped by the city flat to take down the last lamps and to leave the keys there for the new owners. Moving out is always a little sad, and even more so if you've lived in the house/flat for some time and put a lot of memories and heart into it. I think this was one of the hardest moves, as I have been around this flat since birth. The absolute worst move at the tie was then I was  four and we moved away from the first home I'd ever known. (Which happens to be across the park from this one.) I missed it terribly, and some months later my grandfather took me to the building so we could go up with the familiar elevator and look at my old door. He showed me there was a new name on the door, and told me there were new people living there now. I remember being very sad that we could not go in and look at "my home" because surely they would have understood.

This is the flat I bought Dag home to first, and it's Eddi's and my first mutual home. It was the first home I was able to decorate and renovate totally as I wanted to, (with my mint green Smeg for example that I took with me now that we moved). This was also the place I had my first "job" at; I used to clean at my grandmother's as a teenager for pocket money, so I really knew every corner in and out. As a child my grandparents would watch me when my mother was at work, and I'd sit on the kitchen table watching the cars turn down from the big road and drive along the park and I'd be as enthusiastic over each and every one NU KOMMER MAMMA!; "this one is mommy!. Some time ago Dag would do the same and try to see when Eddi or me were coming home.

Here's before we started renovating it in 2010 -

And later the same year in action.

Bye bye kitchen!

It was also on the floor of this kitchen that I realised who my grandparents were (one of my earliest memories; I was propably two or three years old) - sitting there playing I heard my mother say MOM to my grandmother and was all "aaah, so that's why we're hanging around these old people all the time". We used to spend many Christmases here, and one time- I must have been around five- I was a hundred percent sure I saw Santa flying in the sky with his reindeer sleigh. Like, for reals, he was there. Weird that my parents were not that stunned out by it, but just sad that it was great.

Before the renovation in spring 2010.

 

And six and a half years later when leaving.

In between it was nice!

This photo was when we had just moved in and thing weren't really in place yet.

Now it's empty. Or, was.

I will miss my bedroom window view!

Most of all I'll miss the kitchen window!

We are now settled in the countryside for good, with a lot of boxes and ikea bags, no room for a Christmas tree this year, and with a big need for further renovations. Neither Eddi nor me have been home a lot lately and won't be for some time either, so I will have to be patient and take it bit by bit.

And now some new people are living in the flat. I hope they will have lots of great memories as well!

Read More

HOLIDAYS

I recall myself stating, after last Christmas, that went by too fast, that I'd start the following Holidays in early November already; haning up Christmas lights and stars here and there, enjoying glögg (the warm spiced wine -or sometimes just juice- that resembles 'glühwein') and getting to enjoy Christmas for as long as possible. I probably say it every year but I do enjoy the holidays.

Well, this year we put our lights up in the evening of the 23rd and didn't even get a tree (it can't fit for the moment, as our Tapiola-flat is boxed up in our living room)...



Well, next year my home will be nice, organised and fancy again and I'll have all the time in the world to sit at home and be cosy with my cup of hot and spicy and my seasonal light for weeks ahead. Or, so we can say.

But, even though the rain was pouring outside (ironically, I did joke about it being all green on Christmas as we had half a meter of snow two days after Halloween...) we managed to get into an express Christmas mood once the light were up and we did some ginger bread baking with the boys!

I also made a batch of apple-ginger marmalade for Christmas gifting.

Half of the dough never makes it as far as to the oven of course.


I supervise with a cup of glögg, before the younger generation think they've baked enough.

(That's about after one tray.)

And you haven't really baked gingerbreads if you haven't burned one set of them.
(The rest did turn out fine and half of them are in my belly already).

And then I (almost) turned off social media for a couple of days and my work email for reals and enjoyed being at home (first time on months Eddi and I are at home during days off at the same time!) with the family.
Christmas <3 3="" br="">

Read More

THROWBACKS, OLDIES

There has been this old-photos challenge going on on Facebook lately. Not that I am sure why everything has to be a challenge actually. The only challenge for me would be to actually make the effort to post something (when there are lots of better things to do), or then to find the time to do so, which I guess in this case is the case, as it meant trying to dig out some old photos). As I was young before digital cameras came most old photos of me are in albums at my parents house and in one box in my basement somewhere, and the amounts are of course nowhere near the selfie parades of today's world. I pretty much only remember having this photo of me from around or before this millennium. But alas, I did find some more. And I did have a little laugh and also a nostalgic smile looking at some of these. As my blog will soon turn nine years (fanfares!) and as I will get yet another year older around the same time prtt prtt PRTTT (=trumpet sound) and have often posted something old about me because of that, but nowadays usually post everything with at least a six month delay, I will do this a bit in advance. Oldies on parade, here you go!

It's 1982 and I turn one year old and have chubby cheeks and look an awful lot like my son. Or, he sure did look an awful lot like me when he was a bébé.

My sister and I sit on a rock some years later. 

And then we pretended we were on the beach in Miami where my dad had gone for business and bought us these sundresses. My youngest sister apparently wears the pink one still as a nightie. She's rather tiny. There are not so many photos of me with my youngest sister. One where we are rocking her in a swing when she's a baby and we are wearing these really strange Playboy sweatpants & shirt combo that my grandmother had bought when she was on holiday in Ibiza. "There's a cute rabbit on them..".

So here's one instead by the cabin lake shore where we are pretending to be street musicians. In 1990 or so.

Jump some five-six years forward and I'm fifteen and in a drama group and featured in this leaflet. I dyed my hair and all my clothes black at that time. My friend dug this one up some time ago and it gave me a laugh indeed. 

And then I turned sixteen and seventeen and was a hippie but these ones you have seen at some point already. I also notice that it was possible to get caffe lattes by then.

Mmmyup.

I still have that dress, a yellow 1960's sundress that used to belong to my grandmother's sister. Not that if probably fits me. But it's in a chest in the bedroom along with some other clothes that I still hold on to.

And now we are in the digital age! Here's me as an design student in 2002 or so when we had a photography course and got to take photos with a digital camera.


Not sure how to end this one here so I'll do it with the latest photo there is of me, which, suitably for our age is a selfie from earlier today when I found this field with sunflowers that one could pick and that was a nice thing for my Monday.

(For the recored,, being older is a lot better than you'd picture it to be when you are say, 15 or 21. Phew.)

Read More