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I've been busy the last couple of days. With what you wonder? Well....

It isn't done or anything, just got started on it again. I did quite a few of these squares a couple of years ago now. But then didn't get inspired enough to sit down and finish it until now. I am planning on doing a bed spread with this 3x3 square in the center framed by a one tone fabric and finish off the sides with a single line of squares. The fabric framing the center will be one colour, quilted in some fashion. I haven't decided yet if it will be white but most likely it will be. The pattern is called Storm at sea or Rolling stone. It is fiddly to make the squares but ones you got them into sections it is easy to sew together into a square of 36x36cm. Then you only have the problem of fixing the finished squares together into a bigger 3x3 section! But I must say I'm quite proud of maintaining a rough 36 cm square on all of them even though the sewing is a bit wobbly at times. Will post it on here when I'm finished, in the next decade or so...!

There are ways of salvaging old curtains given from your mum to new more to my liking ones. Well these were just too short (the top white) so I added on a spare bit of flowery voile and voila! you got a new pair of spring curtains! Well talking about spring, it was looking like spring at least until it started snowing an hour ago!

We got some new fish as well today to our tank. There are 3 new shiny fancy goldfish swimming around in there now. And some plants and a background. Our surviving Siamese fighting fish looks very bleak and grey compared to the flamboyant new goldfish. We've named them and this time it was my turn to do the honours. So the white and red spreckled one is Tinky Winky, the black and gold one is Dipsy and the all orange gold one is LaaLaa.... I know, James is really a bad influence on me!

My day off.
Sun is shining, snow is falling, it is +3. Now what could be wrong in that sentence?

We are heading out soon to do ...something. Haven't yet decided on what yet but definitely something is to be done today. I was thinking IKEA but mum needs the car early so wont go there today. We also discussed going by train to Gävle or Uppsala but nothing came out of it. So it looks like a trip to Borlänge and shop a bit at Kupolen. And then do some grocery shopping at Coop. Will fit a walk in as well since the weather is just fine (not grumbling about the snow)

Yesterday we went to the annual allotment meeting were they talked about what's been happening the previous year and elected new members to the board, I was elected to join the election committee. They also confirmed that the county messed up when saying it was fine to build small greenhouses. Now apparently you have to send an application in for a permit to build greenhouses since one neighbour has started to complain about how the allotment area looks like. We are very new to this so we didn't really know all the in's and out's of what's been going on. But one neighbour has started to come down and harass people at the allotment saying they have nothing to do there and they should clear off. Most of the times he has been drunk when going after people. Also he complains about people using the road that leads from the main road down to other houses along the allotment. But he cant deny us to use the road as long as the community there gets part of the maintence subsidised from the county, in other words, its still a public road. It seems that the neighbour also is complaining about the little bay getting overgrown and it is our fault for using fertilizers. And we shouldn't be using white fleece either to protect from frost, it should be green.... The list is endless of what he complains about. They are at the moment trying to find out what is what about permits since they have had different answers to what they are allowed to do. Hopefully they will get to know before the growing season starts here, which is in april, may. We were more welcomed this time and people actually talked to us! We felt quite out of it on the last meeting. But im sure they keep their distance untill they know if you are serious about staying in and use your allotment to grow plants in and not just leave it after you've put the seeds in. Quite a few do just leave them all summer thinking it will manage on its own. They also talked about getting a bit tougher on people that just leave everything. If they cant shape up they are out of there. But i will have to see it to belive it in this case. They seem very reluctant to confront people and tell them what's what..

Weekend over...
It has been lovely absolutely GORGEOUS weather here this weekend and who do you think had to work hmmm????
Well its obvious it was me, never mind that I had raging pms and was ready to murder someone, I had to work with Mr B as well! *pause to retract claws*

Serenity, calm, think of a slowly flowing stream..birdys chirping and humming bumble bees. Ahhhh....

IT DOESN'T WORK!

Today was scary, me that is, was scary. Women everywhere will understand and guys will go duck behind the nearest sofa until it passes. Just consider how much energy you release when on PMS ,negative or positive depending on your life situation I suppose. Its like walking around with a volcano inside that's just letting enough pressure out to stop it from exploding. By the looks of my temper this weekend my life must be quite shitty. But its not, well only work wise I suppose. Otherwise it is great!
Bet you next time I will be all weepy and will cry for the slightest little mishap, like not being able to tie your shoelace up or if the bread isn't defrosting quick enough for you. Pathetic. Still, it makes life much more interesting. I don't know if James will agree with me though... ;)

It is starting to melt a bit over here. Already! It is nice and sunny outside right now so might go for a longer walk before work. Been cleaning and pottering around a bit this morning. Just tidying everything away stuff that seems to be leaking out in various rooms all the time. Strange that how some things seem to grow legs over night isnt it... ;)

I've just cooked a lovely lambstew i've never done before and baked an almond cake for desert, yummieness in this apartment is high right now!

Work is going pearshaped in more then one way. And our boss is having a nervous breakdown or so it feels like sometimes. He is sneaking in new schedules without proper advance notice. He is calling it just temporary and still it will be a fixed one once everybody's got used to it. He hasn't said anything to me yet even though I know he has changed my shifts during the weekends. It will be most interesting to see how long he will wait until telling me. If he will at all of course. But when he does I'm going to ask him why he wants me to sit at the tills more and get more trouble with my shoulders then I already have( he knows about my problems in this area). And why he doesn't put A in as the new weekend boss as he had told and promised her. If he did as he had planned in the first place I would get A's shifts in the veggiesection and everything would be fine and dandy part from me losing out on double pay on Saturdays, but never mind that. He had promised to shift Mr B off the weekend shift since he wasn't doing what he was supposed to do and generally being a pain in the arse. But he chickened out didn't he and now it seems we are stuck with Mr B arsing around doing nothing during our weekends pretending to Big Boss that he did all the work while we work our arses off instead and never get noted for it! It is so shitty I cant tell you! No wonder I'm looking for another job eh?

I am holding in my hand a white envelope with my finished application for another job! Take a deep breath and scream, YEEEEHAAAAAAA!
Doesnt that feel better? I could get used to this you know ;)

I did it in 4 seconds.
I deserved an A++!!
Take the How Dexterous Are You? Quiz!!

Ehm, does this mean i need to spend a bit more time away from the computer? LOL

I am seriously suffering from low self esteem right now! I'm trying to write a CV and all I can see is that I've not done much different work then what I am doing right now, and it is soooo depressing! Plus the fact that I am getting old and and and! Well you seem to get my drift..

Im going to apply for a job i saw in the newspaper. It is at CSN. They grant loans for students in Sweden. If i understand correctly you will be giving advise and helping out generally at their helpline and filing the loan applications and likes. Im going to give it a shot anyway. Now to the hard bit, writing an interesting CV!

I had just noticed, it doesnt get dark untill 4.30 now a days! Its amazing how a few minutes each day make you peark up. But the thought of tomorrow plunks me straight back down again. Im going to the dentists to fix a hole in a back tooth. I HATE going to the dentists. Or rather what they can do to your poor teeth! At least im going first thing in the morning so it is over and done with on my day off. Why do i constantly make arrangements for doing stuff on my day off? In the end it is a hectic day with lots of To Do things on a list waiting to be ticked off. Its not really a day off is it then?

I might learn, someday that days off are supposed to be just that. Maybe.. :)

To have someone that talks in his sleep is very amusing and bewildering at the same time. Last night James was very tired and dropped off into bed very early. He said he would take a short nap, but when the nap just lingered on i went in to see if he wanted to get up or stay in bed and sleep for the night. When asking him if he was awake since he looked it i got a response somewhere around the lines of " an onion is smaller then an apple". I realised he wasnt awake and had a giggle but then he told me to go away in a sleepy kind of shrug. I left him to it and went back to my book. I do wonder how his mind works and what that was all about though.

Another long absence. I'm out of things to blog about. Horrible thought isn't it? Of course there are much to blog about yet but I haven't had any inspiration at all to sit down and write. Sometimes I've thought ' oh I really should have blogged about that ' but any further then a thought it has not yet become.

We had a blizzard at the start of the week and now it has gone very very cold. Sunny but cold and everything is covered in a thick layer of white crisp snow. We even went out to walk a bit in it and waddle through the thick snow drifts that the wind was making. There is something special about walking through snow up to your knees :)

James' work seems to have dried up. Not a phonecall from them for the past 4 weeks isn't a good sign. At least he is able to cash in on the dole since he joined the union a year ago. Every little thing helps I suppose. But I really do wish he would find a new job that is a more permanent one then the one in the book printers. Would put my restless mind to rest a bit more. That's another thing. I'm so restless. I cant concentrate and am fidgeting about almost everything. Wanting change, NOW type of mood. But what sort fo change you ask? Heck if I know. More then the obvious one of course, a change of jobs. I've been too long holding onto this crappy work in a supermarket. I think it is time someone else got it so I could get on with my life and do something I like for a change. Ha! Only if we win 20 million on the lottery this Saturday could we do that. Money is king in this world and oh how I hate to be bound to a work I really don't like anymore just because you need one to pay your bills so you can have somewhere to stay. Oh that did sound very spoilt didn't it. Think of all the people who don't have a home or a work to go to... But still you get the drift don't you, I'm fed up!

Have you got a memory that sticks there just because it was so brilliant when it happened but when explained later seems slightly weird? Well I now have one. It was on New Years day, family dinner with James' parents and his sister and her bf Steve. We had had our lovely turkey dinner that James' mum had prepared and we decided we would play a game called Quotations. In it there are several different groups of questions to answer, one group of them being Buzz Words. In Buzz words the whole point is that when one player reads the question the other players have to guess what word is missing from a sentence, when they know the word they shout BUZZ and the one who gets it first gets to answer, simple don't you think?

Well in the heat of the game you do mix your words up and it is only natural, anyway I think so, that you should shout the right answer instead of BUZZ. Well Steve did just that. But since James shouted BUZZ first he had the first chance of guessing. Remember this being a very simple question, the sentence you had to complete was "Like a .... out of water". You all know that the missing word is fish, if you didn't know you would have heard Steve shout it and guessed it was the right one since he shouted f*ck afterwards since he botched it. Anyway, we played in teams and James and me were one team. And I thought, great, at least we will lose one of our cards in this game when James were quick. But do you know what he said? Instead of a fish out of water he said duck and looked very smug for a second thinking he had guessed it right before I whacked him! He got this thing about ducks, it all started with a question in Trivial Pursuit that had something to do with animals hibernating and right out of the blue James wondered if Swedish ducks did hibernate like ordinary ducks did.....! We only played that for one round and then moved on to a more sinister game of Scruples....This is where you get questions that will test your moral values and if you can lie convincingly to bodge others. Also it shows how well you know each other...

Christmas was lovely especially having my sister and her bf here did make it extra special. Then we spent new year at James' parents in England. And I think that was just what the doctor prescribed for me. I was still coughing quite a lot from the flu I had before Christmas. But the mild weather in England and some retail therapy did the trick it seems ;)

Ah yes, SALE is a word I love to see when visiting England. I bought 7 new tops and 3 pairs of trousers plus got some lingerie from James.. . Plus everything else we got it is a bloody miracle we weren't overweight when checking in at the airport when going back! We went to 3 different city's shopping(joy joy joy) But also we did get to see James grandparents as well as James getting a football game in there as well. Being a huge Ipswich fan he was very pleased at them winning the game on Saturday. Me, I went to town with James mum and did some last minute shopping before going back to Sweden while he watched a round ball being kicked from one side of a pitch to the other. Hmpf, men and their sport! ;)

And we watched Love Actually on New Years Eve in Ipswich big cinema multiplex. I thought it was a weird film to start with but once you got the number of different stories they were following it was very good. But sad towards the end in two occasions. Being a chick flick I'd still recommend it to guys to go see. Talking about films, I'm major disappointed about The Return of the King! You could see where there will be longer scenes once the extended version comes out, you got this feeling about vital information being cut out and you sat there feeling cheated. And that I wasn't expecting from seeing the two other films. Still it is an amazing film and the effects and the story over all is still excellent. Just is, we wanted better for the last film!

My sister and her bf are coming to stay with us for the holiday and i have to get busy with cleaning and sorting out the guestroom. I think blogging will be scarce during their stay and we are going to fly to England on sunday so it will be a wee bit hectic. I'll catch up with you all once we are settled again after christmas. I'll leave you with a picture of our lovely tree and a wish for a lovely silly season ;)


Merry Christmas Everybody!

At last I might be making some progress to get better from this flu thing. I went back to work on thursday though, big mistake. I went to work yesterday as well but came home after a couple of hours and am now on sickleave until tuesday if I feel like I need it. I always go back too early! I think it must be my mum making an imprint in me when I was younger that you shouldn't be home sick, oh no, you should go back to school/work as soon as you can. But it doesn't work with me. I just get relapses and end up sick again :(

The coughing haven't stopped and my nose is still like a tap flowing with water. But at least I don't have a fever (knock on wood) anymore. The really silly thing is I feel awful for being at home. I got a guilty conscience about it! But that must be because I feel better when not doing so much and just relaxing, it helps my coughing as well. But when I'm at work I cough like an idiot because I'm doing stuff so it is a battle between feeling like your skipping work just because or getting your health back by doing light stuff at home. I'm dreading to tell my mum I'm home again, I can just hear her voice crackle in my head with all sorts of comments. Oh well, its the time to be jolly, so lets forget about that and be merry! Im sure a little glas of something strong will aid me in that ;)

Don't you just hate having a cold? Well I managed to get the flu on tuesday and am not best pleased! It is horrid enough to get an ordinary cold, but a flu? Yuck, I'd forgotten just how fuzzy headed you get from having a fever. And it doesn't make things any better that James got it a couple of days after me either. Now when I'm rid of the fever and perky enough to want to do stuff I feel too weak and sweaty just moving from the sofa to the kitchen to get something to drink. And everything in my mind is churning, its only 11 days left until Christmas and I've not finished my shopping yet! Or got a tree yet... Me, who every year solemnly swear not to get stressed at Christmas has wound myself up so tight I'm starting to panic a bit at the sight of the days just slipping by in a feverish haze! And it had to happen just this year as well when my sister and her bf can come to Christmas because they found someone willing to work for them over Christmas and they want to stay at our place! Me who wanted to get everything nice and settled for our first Christmas here and now I'm feeling more and more the urge to scream BAH HUMBUG to anyone cooing about Christmas and oh how wonderful it will be! I just have a big lump in my stomach and am not relaxed at all.

It's an amazing morning considering we have had the worst grey weather for over a month! It is blowing hard outside and the sun is rising to almost a blue sky. It has a white haze to it but i am sure the sun will shine today between the gusts of snow! There were storm winds yesterday night that made the windows rattle and the dry snow that fell to fly around making it look like a blizzard at times outside. Im sure it is colder as well, it looks like it.

We are heading into the center of town in a bit to purchase hall furniture from the Elephant shop (Indiska). We are walking it and im worried because i dont own a hat and my hood wont be any use outside in this wind! I will have to borrow one of James' hats. I hope we will make it back in time, im working this weekend as well so cant stay too long shopping!

Sorry for the lack of posts, but we've been busy with christmas preparations! We went christmas shopping on tuesday and yesterday i went hunting for spruce twigs to use when decorating our balcony rail. I ended up in the forrest by Källviksbacken cutting some with my mum. I also picked a bit of green moss to decorate our Noel candlestick. When i got home i happily got on with decorating the rail and finished off the whole big garland with some small fairylights. They dont twinkle but shine ever so nice in the green twigs.

By the time i was finished outside James had got home from work and we started to do a bit of cleaning up and decorating inside. I sewed some new christmas curtains since i didnt find any nice new ones, my old ones were sadly too short for our new windows. Just a note, what tacky christmas curtains there are for sale this year! And huge screaming patterns to them as well. I gave up looking for some already made up ones after seeing all that there is in ickle Falun and found a nice dark red material instead. They really are bedsheets but now converted into plain curtains with home made golden tiebacks and looking a lot more expensive then they really were. Im glad i can sew stuff myself at times like these. Or otherwise we would have silver goats on a red backround with giant purple hearts with black and golden lines mished into them hanging in the windows....

Today is baking day. Im blogging a bit while im waiting for my saffron bun dough to rise.

Saffron buns are traditional food for christmas here in Sweden. I like them a lot and they are fun to make as well. You can make them into many different shapes but i like the sunbread shape, lots of S's laid on top of each other to make a circle. Will take some pictures for you later.