The weekend...

Its a working weekend for me though, maybe thats why the sun is shining and it is pretty darn HOT outside! It is just not fair is it. Because i can bet you anything that next weekend when i am off from work there will be rain and hail and other unpleasent things flying around outside!
At least i didnt need to get up at 5.30 on my weekend off to go to work and do a stocktake now did i James... ;o)
Sulk over.. am feeling much better now.

In other news? Not much really, my life at the moment is at a standstill. Wedding ahead, but not so close yet to make everything spring into action. It is a bit sad that the only interesting thing happening is when i have a small argument with James over what we are going to eat for dinner. Silly but i suppose you grasp after anything that could turn the temperature up a notch into INTERESTING when the rest of your life just seems plain and dull.
Is it a bad sign wen you look at a desk and just have this urge to sweep all the crap that is on it into a box and trow it away because nothing gets put away anyway? Or it might just be the hormones...

Then Almitra spoke again and said, "And what of Marriage, master?"
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Guess who :)

Oh its been a boring week. And its not finished yet either! And as the days just seem to dwindle away our wedding is getting closer and closer and there will be lots of stuff to be managed starting next week i think. But right now its just standing still... could it be the calm before the storm i wonder....

James ran the Spring i Benen race yesterday. He finished in the middle somewhere of what i could make out which is very good i think. He also got a medal and i took some little videoclips of him running on our digicamera, go and have a look. See if you can spot the Running Blue... :)

After the race we went to Rusta, a discount shop, and bought a fold away table to hang on our balcony and two folding chairs in akacia wood. Bargain really considering it is solid wood.

In the afternoon Rosie and Per came by for some swedish 'fika'. Fika is when having coffe or tea with cakes, buns, sandwiches anything really that you can munch to while chatting, i think it is an excellent word and havent come across anything similare in english. We chatted away and watched a film while it was snowstorming outside! So no game of Kubb or boule yesterday either. Btw it did come 5 cm of snow and it stayed untill about now when the sun has come out and is melting it all away.

We walked into town to see my gran and walked back as well this morning. Thought it might do my back some good since it is hurting like buggery right now. Dont know if i have pulled a muscle or something when lifting stuff at work last week, something is getting caught at times and it really hurts like....! Right now im sitting with a hot waterbottle wedged between the chair and my back when typing this. Any suggestions to what you can do? We might go for another slow walk later since that seems to help me to relax and stop tensing up so much. If it is as bad as today tomorrow morning im not going to work. Oh the joy of telling my boss that, anyway i'll do whatever he wants me to do if that means going to see the so called 'company doctors' he has a contract with and get a certificate that yes i have a poorly back and can stay home so he dont think im faking it. In any case im going to phone up my chiropractor and ask if he got a time for me to see him. He might be able to help.

In other news, i went shopping for weddingclothes with my mum on wednesday ...... And it is only a true miracle i came back without a MAJOR falling out between my mum and me! Sigh, this is a woman who says she cant find anything to wear in a shop FULL of beautiful and various clothes styles. One who takes one look, not even that, and says oh no she cant wear that. It would help to try them on you know, it might surprise her once in a while....
Anyway it got so bad she was saying something along the lines that she might as well not come to the wedding when i was getting a bit frustrated with her reluctance to even try some suggestions out! Thank the gods that i was in a good(ish) mood, any other day i would have told her that that was just fine and if it was so much trouble for her to find something to wear she might not as well make an effort and stay at home, ending with me stomping off in a mood and probably crying as well. Ok for not wanting to wear a dress since she is convinced she doesnt suit in one, and alright i suppose you have to be able to wear it afterwards as well. But please, no black trousers and white blouse as she thought of buying. Am i being unreasonable?
Anyway, after much grumping she tried out a lovely light blue skirt with a subtle floral print and a nice middle blue blouse as i told her i prefered to see her in a skirt since she refused blankly to try out some lovely summer dresses i showed her, and yes she would have looked fab in them dont care what she thinks. So that is now sorted and i remember why i never go clothes shopping with my mum, its just too emotional to try to convice a stubborn missus No that she could wear anything else then her usuall attire.
I still love my mum, she is just very trying sometimes....!

Currently listening to Raul Malo - I Said I Love You

Now there is a reason to watch Parky, you stumble over someone like Raul Malo playing a dancy happy song. Think Latino Lover in english... :o))
Weird i know but it works, it makes me want to jump to my feet and pull James up out of bed(he is napping) for a funky latino rumba!

I would offer it to you as part of the Divine Tigs Jukebox but how do you write the code so i works? We got enough space to place a mp3 but how do you link it right. Help?

What have i been doing all day today you wonder? Well even if you dont wonder i will tell you, so shut up and pay attention! ;o)

Because today i am so proud of myself. I sat down and sewed my curtains that i have been shuffling from one side of the apartment to the other for ages it feels like. Finaly today i felt like doing something about them. It helped that it was pouring down with rain outside and i didnt have anything else to do for the rest of the afternoon with all the re-potting of my seedling plants done and dinner out of the way as well. I had bought these second hand curtains for over a month agao thinking they might fit nicely in the bedroom, but since they were a bit on the short side i decided against it. But i couldnt just trow them away again so i pondered a bit about what to do with them. Then i saw these other curtains that were half white and half pattern in the Elephant shop (Indiska to all swedes, but i rather use James' renaming of it) and thought i could do that with mine! So off i went and bought some nice white material and laid it all out to see if i got any inspiration from it. But oh no i didnt so it all went into the guestroom, waiting for the inspiration to show itself. So today i did the lot of them. Even managed to remind James that he had a run to do today, not listening to his whine about it raining outside i managed to get him up and out doing his 10k run in the rain (i smirked as he went past the window but im sure he didnt see me.. ;o) )

Of course there is a picture!

I'll write more about Valborg tomorrow because i need my sleep, well at least the 5 hours i get since im working early tomorrow doing the bread....But im not sleepy! I know, i'll hyptonize myself into getting sleepy.

You are getting very sleepy.. Very sleepy... Your eyes cant stay open.... You have an urge to count sheeeeeep...Sleepyzzzzzzz...zzzleeepy...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Its been a hectic weekend at work and now i am completly beat, still I have to go to work in about 10 minutes. i hate early mornings! Besides it always makes me so sleepy when i get back home, tuesday is early day and of course nap day. Isch i feel old.....!

Part from work nothing much is happening. How is that possible with us getting married soon! But everything is just boring work at the moment. Must do something to change that, but what...?

Btw it snowed the other day, it was mixed with rain but anyway, it snowed! At least with the rain that fell yesterday it will be allowed to have these big bonfires on Valborgsmässoafton (wednesday) again since the ban on burning has been lifted. I wonder what we are going to do for Valborg, usually we go to some bonfire or the other and listen to the speech and the songs anf go ohh and aahh when the fireworks shoot off. Probably we will go to the mine and have a listen anda freeze if it s going to continue to be this cold!

It has been a busy week after easter. So sorry for the lack of posts. But i'll try to recap a bit whats been happening this week at least while James is doing my supper. Just got back home from work you see and am relaxing with some lovely cold Pepsi and just finished checking my mail.

So, this week, hmmmm... The picture from the post below(James took that one) is from sunday when we had been out so see our friend Rosie and her bf Pär in her parents summercottage. It was lovely weather and we had an indoor bbq since there was a ban on any outdoor burning because of the dry weather we have been having the last couple of weeks. Still havent rained. We stayed there for a full day and had lots of good food and loads of laughs and a few mosquito bites but never mind that. We walked around the stuga(cottage) area and snapped away some pictures. Both some on James digital one but i brought my Canon EOS with me as well and managed to use up 2 rolls of film. All in all a very relaxing day, even got a bit sunburnt so might not look so pale anymore.

On monday we both had a day off so i asked my mum if she wanted to go to IKEA with us, which we ended up doing. They were rebuilding the shop so it wasnt as big and tidy as usuall but i found some lovely, coulorfull material that i've made into a table cloth and also a big, white( i wanted the squeeky green one but James put his foot down) plastic container on wheels with a selfwatering system in that im going to plant some runnerbeans in later on in may when its warmer. We also bought a loooong curtainpole with attachments on the side, it seems the lenght of a window in Sweden isnt longer then 3 m because i havent been able to find any that are longer then that, we need 3.20, so i was very pleased to finaly find something other then the usuall drab one that comes with the apartment.

Tuesday was boring work and as usuall i was very tired from the early start so i wasnt much use afterwards. Though we did bike out to the surplus shop on the other side of town to have a look at outdoor chairs(they just had ugly white plastic ones) and i got my bike fixed in the bikeshop on the way, the chain has been hopping off so it needed tightening a bit.

Wednesday we had lots of things planned and i think we managed to do most of them. I phoned the county hall to see what they needed from me since they had phoned up earlier before easter. Just need to hand in name and adress of our witnesses for the wedding. Also i phoned Rankhyttan to ask about food and that we will get the table flowers from the same guy who is doing my bouque, but all this you can read in my other blog. Also i got to talk to the chef about some ideas we have about what we want to eat at the wedding. We went around town doing various small errands, getting James a nice white shirt and silver grey silk tie was one of them. He looks really really handsome in his new suit. I also had a look at shoes for me but couldnt really find anything in town, might go to Borlänge one day next week to see if i find anything there. The only good shoeshop in Falun closed earlier this year, well the only one i ever went to anyway. The two other ones are too trendy, well you know the kind. Ones that dont have any comfy shoes that you can wear next year as well, get my point?
I also had a first fitting of my dress later on in the afternoon so we were spending the day wandering around town untill it got to 5. More in here

Yesterday was a bore at work, Lotta was home sick so i had to settle for Mrs Boris as company at the tills.... I neednt say more. But we finaly got round to buying some window boxes we're going to hang outside on the balcony. Got them in a nice deep blue colour and quite long ones, also bought some pansys to set out in my little square metal pot. I'll take a picture later on tomorrow. And James got his bike back as well all fixed up since the back wheel hub had cracked and broken down and needed replacing.

And today was just the usuall Big Friday when people get paid and rush over to us to spend all their money at once, or at least it felt like it today. To say im pleased im home is an understatement! Enough babbling, time for dinner! I'll post more later, hopefully

I've changed my flower picture to one that this guy has taken. What can i say, im in awe of his lovely pictures and i will watch his next step very closely and wait for the next set of pictures to appear on his site. He even inspired me to take pictures again, which i havent been doing for quite some time.

I do wonder when you stop having enough TIME to do stuff you really liked to do. Does that come with age? I dread the years to come in that case and i really REALLY hope i wont become like all the senior citizens i see stressed out in the shop each day because they dont have the time to wait in line for their turn. They rudely remark they havent got the time to wait! They gots things to do, people to meet. Isnt retirement supposed to be just that, retirement. Not saying you have to sit in a chair and slowly fade out. But that you finaly have the time to do all that stuff you were planning but never got the chance for when you were younger when raising kids and working all hours of the day took all that precious time.

I've always thought there's more to life then your work but recently it has all been just that, work, work, work. And i dont even do very inspiring kind of work part from my 2 days in the fruit and vegetable section. People(yes you know who you are) are always hassling me to change what i do if i dont like it and i do know they are right. Maybe one day i will do just that, but not right now... I really dont know what would be needed to get me to change. But it would be something major or at least that i have a better job landed already.

How about you people coming here, yes i know you are a few, still, would you be doing what you are now if you had a choice and could do whatever you would like to?

There are little witches and witchmen running around distributing Happy Easter cards in exchange for sweets and kronas. Its a swedish tradition that the ickle people dress up and in a sense go 'trick or treating' on the thursday before Easter, but if they dont get anything they dont trick you here. Now last was a very rowdy gang of boys with painted mustaches and awfull big hats. Dont think they were more then 11 - 12 years old. Will see if any one else comes round. Usually they should only do this on thursday but lately they come all the days before and during easter. They should stick to tradition me thinks! ;o)

Can i say i am SOOO glad to be home from work? I just sat and watches as a trail of people walked into the shop this morning when i unlocked the entrance door. The first 5 minutes was just people pouring in through the door. And 10 minutes later the queues started to build and was at a constant untill i went home. Im sure they are still long as we speak even though we are supposed to be closing now at 8. But i didnt mind the people because i got to go home after half a day of it and dont need to go back to work now for 4 lovely days. And they have promised excellent weather all through the holiday, so im not complaining, besides it made the day go so much quicker.

I read The Alchemist in one day, its not a thick book i agree, but it was a while ago a story got hold of me so i couldnt put it down. Its a simple but yet interesting story about a young boy finding out the meaning of his life. If you care for some food for your brain, and soul i might add, you should read it and tell me if it was crap or if it was good and why you thought so. Im interested in knowing what you thought.

Why do you celebrate Easter? Is it for the chocolate eggs? Is it for the time off work you get? Do you know why we have Easter at all?

Me, i do it to celebrate that we are one step closer to summer and the coming of spring. And today has truly been one of the first REAL days of spring. A pleasent +14 and a sparkling sun, birds going crazy singing to their hearts content. And people sitting around in the park, which is still not so green, but still, sitting there indulging the warmth and the sun. Catching a few rays on that pale winter skin. And trying to forget it actually snowed this time last week.

And in order to celebrate the coming of spring (and easter of course) we swedes take twigs of birch, bring them inside and put multicoloured feathers on them and hang decorated eggs on them and call it Pĺskris. A little known fact is that in the olden days they used said bunch of twigs to wack all your old sins out (so there would be room for new ones no doubt). Dont know where the feathers came from but eggs are an old fertility symbol so naturally you hang them on the twigs, but only after you've blown all the content out and painted them in bright colours. Have you ever tried to empty an egg without smashing the shell? It is damn close to impossible! But with a little bit of help from your old cellotape it can be done.

This is our bunch of twigs, quite muted in colour compared to what i've seen.
Notice the ickle yellow ducks with colorful hats hanging in there, my mums choice of course because what is an Easter without ducks... ;o)

Do you do something special when you get home from work just to make a point your not longer at work? My little ritual is to have a glass of pepsi, take my watch off and go online. Well i drink pepsi a lot and go online frequent enough but it seems like that when im not working i dont wear a watch, to James' irritation i might add because it always seems to end up that i am asking him every so often what the time is.... :)

Well sitting here and listening to the sorry whinging from James, who actually did volunteer to do the dinner, that he cant find anything to make and that we dont have anything he could do something with it amazes em that he wont look up a cookbook and find something he fancy to try out! Thats what i would do, that or do the sure thing, takeaway. Lets see what he says when he reads my post...... ;o)

Work today was utterly boring, busy but utterly boring. It is total crap to work weekends with Boris, becasue the only thing you want to do is strangle the poor sod and stuff him in his freezer! Thank the Gods that Big Boss is coming back from his golfingtour in Holland tomorrow. Maybe it will make things go back from being Boris' private playpen to a normal workplace! And maybe Big Boss can calm down the lynchmob that will otherwise assemble in the kitchen tomorrow morning.

Have you ever wondered what your fairy name would be? Well according to this Goblin mine is:
Morlenma SpringCheeks of the Warm Dale

Suits me fine to live in the Warm Dale, it is snowing here, AGAIN!
Thanks to Lynn for the giggle

I've been dabbing a bit at re-upholstery tonight. After i got home from my lesser eventful day i waited for James to get back from work before making any plans whatsoever. After dinner we decided to go for a bikeride to my friend Rosie and her secondhand shop. Only thing is that we met mum just as she was finishing work and instead of biking there we left the bikes by the garage and got a lift there thinking we would have a nice pleasent walk back home afterwards. Well once inside the shop i found some bare necesseties for someone who likes to sew, lots of marked down zippers, perfect for my future pillows im going to make, one day, soon, yeah you know... ;)

We also stumbled over some nice chairs...and a long bench....
In the end, we bought the bench and one chair for the desk plus the zippers. Thing was, we were walking, i couldnt phone my mum to ask if we could borrow her car since she was going to her friend, whom i dont know the phonenumber to! So either you reserve the stuff and come back for them later, or you do as we did, walked home carrying them... Now you might think we decided to do that since it might not have been so far from home. But oh no, this place is at the opposite side of town so it was quite a trek. But at least we had something to sit on when we got tired, one of the good things that James pointed out when we had to stop so i could change the hold on the lighter chair for i dont know which time! Well he at least got the fun bit of doing a bit of benchsailing when the wind caught him...lol!

It took us well 1˝ hour to walk back home but at least we got home before the sun set which i had doubts about beforehand. Since we got home i managed to make a cake, just in case Rosie and bf was coming over later, dived into my HUGE pile of various fabrics and come up with some suggestions for James to look at and i also managed to change the cover of the chair. It was not at all hard and quite fun as well. As we were walking home we went by an upholsterer and he was still open so i bought some padding from him. All in all i am very pleased with how the new chair looks like with the new cover. And the bench is neatly set on our balcony so we have somewhere to sit once it gets a bit warmer and doesnt blow as fierce northwind as it has been for the last couple of days. I will make some cushions for us to sit on as well since i now have the space to spread out on when sewing.

James took some nice pictures of the chair, one of those before/after thing. So behold, the bold and beautiful new chair! Notice that i got the white star in the center, just were i wanted it, arent i clever? ;o)

It's one of those days that doesnt really turn out like you had planned. Today was meant being spent in IKEA in Gävle, but since James work caught us before we got out the door, he had to go in. Well he really didnt need to but work has ben slow for him over the past week or so, so naturally you grab everything you can get. Well that is all and well but that leaves me in a bit of a dangle since i dont know what to do with the rest of the day. I was so set on going i contemplated to go alone, but how fun is that when you are supposed to look at furniture togheter. I might had found something nice that was considered buying and now i cant because the other half of the deciding party had to work.... :(

Its a wonderful day out as well, but my mood is in a dip so cant really be bothered about going out even! Suscpect my hormones have something to say as well but im trying not to listen to them today. So therefor i am going to force myself out the door and borrow mums car and go for a drive and have a look localy for new furniture.
See yas later when im home.

YAWN!!
I've worked extra today, so had to get up at 5.20 this morning, yes 5.20 this morning Maria went up and asked herself, is she stoopid! But im not, just have to work for Malin since she very kindly worked for me when we moved house earlier. It was alright once you got there and got started. And the day went very quickly for being a saturday. Anyway as a result of the early start im yawning my head off and so is James since he also got up a bit later to do some laundry at 7. After work we went to my mum for dinner, we decided to bike there. But since there is half storm outside it was alright going there but the trip back home just took the last bit of energy out of both of us i think.

There was a storm on yesterday, some roofs got lifted off a couple of apartment buildings in the next town, but nothing major here. Just a few powerlosses and lots of trees falling down. But that is expected when it is so windy that you can almost lean into the wind without falling flat on your face! And theres been some snow, both wet and soggy laying on the ground stuff and that hard prickly stuff that stings you when biking home from mums!

Oh well, what better way to relax then to have a look at The Two Towers laying in our sofa vegging away. Oh did i just say that, but how is that possible you say since it hasnt even come out on video yet. Well, i will just say that the nice toothfairys left it for me under my pillow since i have had a rotten toothache for a couple of days. Getting your wisdom teeth does that to you. Or i might just be delirious.... ;o)

Its been a very hectic tuesday. Theres a new deli opening next door to the shop so of course we have had lots of curious people walking in asking where is the fish and deli shop was and if it all was a big april fools joke. It looks very nice the new shop. Mainly they have a large selection of fish but also they have some other deliproducts, like snails with garlic butter, ready to put in the owen... Or as i spotted large steaks of tuna. Might try that since tuna is one of the few fishes i like. Naturally there was lots of people coming in to us as well to have a look and a shop around. So i've been a real little busy bee today. That might explain why i after coming home and having sausage stroganoff felt like having a nap. I went to bed and it took just as long as for James to go out and pick up my bike that the wind had blown down for me to be sound asleep! Im a bit amazed that i just nodded off that quickly. I only had an hour worth of sleep but it made me feel better. Just as well because im all achy in my hands and feet, it happens when you lift several 12kg crates of apples and a dozen of 18kg banana boxes!
I am very thankful i have tomorrow off!

Part from that, life is mellow and slow. Spring has seemed to come to stay, even though there was a fierce cold wind today and the odd snowflake flying around. I havent seen any tussilago yet though but im sure they will be springing up like little miniture suns just about everywhere soon. As will the white star of vitsippa nod its little pretty head in the wind. I like spring in Sweden. What i dont like is the yearly explosion of pollen that follows!

Oh, i've just realized i have been blogging for a whole year! Me, that rarely stay on the same thing long enough to get an archive...lol! So happy anniversary to me and my blog i thinks.. :o)