Day 248: Meow? Hello, I'm Pina

Meow? Hello, I'm Pina. I'm the kitty so often referred to in my mama's posts. Speaking of my mama, she isn't feeling so hot today so I thought I would guest blog for her so she could take a break. I really like her blog and I think the idea behind it is effective most of the time. Most days I help her write and assist with the photo shoots. I think maybe you've seen images of my svelte figure and silky fur on occasion? So as her guest blogger I thought I would explore how I find happiness or positivity. For me sleeping all day is definitely high on the list. I can snooze any time anywhere and I really like to stretch out on my back and expose my belly. Sometimes if I make myself look really cute I get scratched and rubbed on my belly while they make endearing sounds. It's pretty cute. 

I also like to chase the occasional bug that makes its way into my apartment and I LOVE to sit in the various windows looking down into the inner garden or out on the street. Windows are my favorite. The inner garden is especially nice now that they have finished making all of those annoying loud noises that shake the building. I thought that would never end and then one day it was like heaven. No sounds at all. Before they left they also put in some of those cool green things that blow in the breezes. I think they are called plants or trees but I am not sure. I really like those, even though they tend to drive me mad with desire to attack them. The window looking out into the street is pretty cool too and lately I have made friends with this fat bird that likes hanging out right outside the window on the ledge. I would really like to taste, er, hang out with her more but I haven't been able to figure out how to get through the glass and she flies away too quickly anyway. Which is weird because she doesn't look like she could move that fast. Oh well.

But one of my absolute favorite things is when my mom and dad are both at home and we all hang out together in the living room. I lie in my own personal beanbag chair and they share the couch. Sometimes they sneak down onto the floor to kiss me and pet me in the middle of their shows on TV and they always make these silly goo goo eyes at me. I think it's sweet but they really need to chill out. I mean, I'm just sleeping but they seem to think I have created an artistic masterpiece. Just lying there. It's okay though. I get it. And as long as we are all happy, and I am pretty sure that we are, then I am happy too.

Me and my new friend.

Me at the summer house. I loved that place. I can't wait to go back!

 My grandpa made this chair and I really love it. I am sleeping pretty hard here. But don't be deceived, that is not a frown. I am actually very happy in the photo.

Day 247: Fresh Figs

If you've ever wondered if sliced fresh figs would be good on your morning cereal, I'm here to tell you that, yes, it is a brilliant idea and it is absolutely delicious. Especially if you toss together some bran flakes, a handful of muesli with dried apples, dates and hazelnuts and a sprinkling of honey-scented quinoa puffs to serve as their bed. I sliced the figs in thick chunks, laid them like jewels atop the cereal blend, poured milk carefully over them and then sunk my spoon into the bowl, making sure to get a bite of fig with each mouthful.

It felt like such a decadent breakfast for a slow, sleepy Monday morning and one that I felt I earned and deserved. I have always been a fan of fresh figs as far back as I can remember. My grandmother had fig trees in her yard and when they were in season we always reaped some of the benefits too. And though I prefer them fresh, even fig jam is a delicacy that I find perfectly acceptable. Just spoon a heaping mound onto your cheese plate with salted almonds and a glass of bubbly champagne on the side. It doesn't get much better than that.

I remember some years back when I was working in a southern French, Northern Italian inspired tapas restaurant that we served a flatbread with fresh figs and pancetta that could put me in a coma. It was so amazing that my mouth waters now just thinking about it. I don't eat ham anymore but if given the option to sink my teeth into one of those flatbread again I may have to just close my eyes and go for it. Pretend it is fakon (fake bacon). It could work. I'll just focus on the figs.

These beauties will be on my cereal tomorrow morning too. I can hardly wait!

Check out these figs on Pinterest: Figs

Day 246: Ikea Bike Tour

Yesterday I suggested that we get up and get going early today and ride our bikes out to Ikea. It is about twelve kilometers there so I figured it would be a good work out round trip and we could leave early to arrive when they open and beat the crowds. Ha. Beat the crowds at Ikea? Impossible. There seems to be some unspoken rule everywhere I have lived where an Ikea exists that states that a minimum of fifty nine thousand three hundred and seventy three people must go to Ikea every single day. Not necessarily to shop but just to hang out and stand three wide in all the aisles. And all of them should bring their tired screaming kids along too. Ah... Ikea. The place I love to hate.

I am partly kidding about loving to hate Ikea. Ikea definitely holds a special place in my heart and our bike ride there and back was awesome. Riding there we stopped several times to make sure we were on track with directions and heading the right way. We only over shot once and luckily we did not have to backtrack uphill. The ride home was a cinch. And the in between part wasn't so bad either.

I never know how I am going to make out on a trip to Ikea. It could turn out that I practically buy everything in the store or I could leave empty handed. Or maybe I find a few things but the things I go looking for don't turn out to be what I expected and those sadly get crossed off the wishlist. But no matter what I end up with there always seems to be one or two surprises that somehow make their way into the shopping basket. One of today's surprises included a double duty springform baking pan.


This ultra cool baking pan doubles as a regular round cake pan or a bundt cake pan, with little heart shapes pressed into the top part of the bundt pan so that the finished cake comes out with heart on top. It is really cute and I felt that it needed to come home with me. And we don't actually have a spring form pan so we actually needed it. It is also red on the outside, which happens to be my second favorite color these days. So you know what this means, right? I will be baking sometime in the near future to test it out. Stay tuned!

Isn't it cute? Who wouldn't want to eat a piece of cake made in that?

Day 245: Next Stop The Moon

It seems appropriate that the weather is rainy and yucky today with it being the first of September. And although I love September and all the wonderful fall things it entails, I am not loving this weather. I'd prefer a cool-ish but sunny late summer, early fall day with the wind blowing through my hair as I fly down the street on my bike. But as luck would have it I am saddled instead with this muggy rainy day. Which I have to admit isn't all bad as it turns out.

After a particularly rough start to our day we headed over to Östermalmshallen, one of the fantastic indoor markets in Stockholm, to have lunch at a restaurant called Lisa Elmqvist. I had never been there but one of my colleagues mentioned that she had lunch there with her sister-in-law visiting from the U.S. and when she mentioned that she had the avocado with shrimp my mouth started watering. My husband is a vegetarian but since we moved to Sweden he has started to eat shrimp on special occasions. So I suggested going there and he said, "Sure!" Amazingly we were seated right away in a perfectly cozy little corner. The avocado with shrimp was as delicious as I had hoped it would be and we had one of the most pleasant servers I've encountered in a long time. A lovely afternoon.

When we were on the subway earlier today I noticed an ad on the wall ahead of me featuring an article from The Economist. The article was displayed in English but it was too far away for me to read it. But it was the title that caught my eye. "Next Stop the Moon," it said. This simple phrase got me thinking about my life and how as a kid I was taught to reach for the moon with regard to my life's dreams. When we are young and looking ahead at life we feel we are invincible and the world is an open playground ahead of us just waiting to be explored and capitalized upon. Then we grow older and life happens and we forget about the moon and start aiming for Fridays instead. This title inspired me and made me want to reach for the moon (instead of Friday) and maybe take a chance with something new. I don't know what it will be exactly yet but I can say that my next stop will be the moon, or its vicinity at the very least.

Day 244: Celebrating

Despite the ninety nine percent chance for rain all day, I am celebrating. Despite today being the last Friday of my get-out-of-work-early days, I am celebrating. I am celebrating because even though it is dark and dreary and rainy outside, it feels nice and cozy inside. It is finally dark enough in the evening to light candles and turn a few lamps on low for a romantic, warm ambience. I am celebrating too because I got to leave work early today and get a few errands done and still managed to get home earlier than I normally would have. And along the way while searching for my elusive orange scarf, I found a cute pair of black jeans and a fun orange spaghetti-strapped top to use for layering in the fall and winter. By the way, I wore orange again today so now I am five for five this week.

Best of all however was my husband coming home today from his overnight work retreat. Yes, I know, get over it, it was only one night but Pina and I missed him anyway and it is nice to have the whole family home together again. Plus it's Friday and the start of the weekend and believe it or not tomorrow is the first day of September. Officially we have twenty two days of summer left before fall hits us with a bang on September twenty second but it is certainly starting to feel like autumn in the air around here and it makes my heart expand a little bit just thinking about pulling out my boots and sweaters again. My favorite time of year.

All of these things are wonderful cause for celebration. So how are we celebrating? Soft tacos and a movie of course. How will you celebrate the start of your weekend?

This is how Marimekko celebrates fall... look at all that ORANGE! I was in heaven! 

I just love the blue bag with the purple and orange flowers! So fun!

Day 243: A Surprise Package

I received a surprise package in the mail today. Okay, technically it wasn't truly a surprise package but it did surprise me. I saw a pair of embroidery scissors on a blog and became obsessed with buying a pair for myself and searched all the way to Australia to find them. The website where I found them is a crafting site, which is really perfect for me since I love crafting myself and grew up with a crafting mother. I emailed the owner because the website showed a photo of the scissors but didn't appear to have any in stock. I also asked if she shipped to Sweden. She replied that she'd just received a shipment  and had not yet updated her website and of course she would ship them to Sweden. Sweet. We even dreamily chatted about the possibility of a house swap at some point in our futures. How fun would that be?

Well, after a few back and forth conversations via email she sent me an invoice, I paid it and the scissors were shipped. I hadn't forgotten about them but knowing that sometimes shipping things overseas can take a while I wasn't expecting them to arrive so soon. So imagine my surprise when I opened my front door and saw the package lying there with today's mail. I became instantly excited. At first I wasn't sure who it was from but then saw the return label and was even more excited. The scissors are the cutest things I have ever seen and getting this package today brightened my day. 

And look, there is an orange sticker on the package, along with her adorable return label with two little hooting owls. Then to top it off, the scissors were not just wrapped in bubble wrap inside but she had lovingly gift wrapped them in a cute purple paper and affixed a label with her store information. It made it feel like I really did get a present. 

Check out her website: Sew Crafty Goodness. It is a darling site with all sorts of wonderful crafting supplies and ideas. I am also very impressed that the package arrived a mere week after it was shipped. Makes the world truly feel like a global village when I can place an order for something in Australia and it arrives a week later by mail in Sweden. 

Don't you love to get packages in the mail? Even if it is something that I ordered for myself ;-).

Kitty was very intrigued as well...

She thought it was a new toy just for her.....                

That black lump to the right of the photo above is her fat paw trying to drag them away.

Watch out kitty! Or I'll give you a whisker trim! (Just kidding)

Day 242: The Things We Love

The things we love... those are the things that make us happy...

I love...

My husband.
My cat.
My family & friends.
Marimekko.
Silence.
A cup of hot tea.
Creativity.
Love.
Soy chocolate frozen banana peanut butter yogurt smoothies.
Shoes.
Clothing that expresses the soul.
Taking a walk on the first real day of the winter thaw.
The sound and smell of the ocean.
A captivating story or book.
The creativity of other people.
Taking a walk on the first day of snow.
Art.
Orange (I wore orange again today).
Rhubarb.
Blueberries.
Having picnics.
Upside down superman kitty.
Freshly baked right out of the oven brownies.
Music.
C is for Carl frames.
Taking trips.
A cozy day spent with my parents.
Wrapping presents.
Giving presents.
Riding my bicycle.
Kardemummabullar.
Love notes.
Handwritten letters.
The quiet of the morning.
Ice cream cones and warm summer days.
Sharing homemade meals.
Walks in the forest.
Sunshine.
Being.

My list and loves could go on and on into eternity...

What's on your list?