cats with a sense of entitlement

One of many things I'm grateful for having in my life is my bunch of pretty darn awesome cats. Even if their highly-developed sense of entitlement can drive you tad crazy at times.



But that's (mostly) alright because the sense of entitlement is partly genetic partly environment caused and I like the fact that I've bred them well and that this home is a place friendly and happy enough to cause that.



Now if their sense of entitlement could comprise emptying their own litter boxes too I'd be even more grateful actually. Unfortunately I don't see that happening anytime soon.

eating in season

I really love the concept of eating in season, good for the environment, the health and the wallet, what's not to embrace?!

However one thing that has not worked so great this past awesome year of 2013 is my interest in cooking, I'm totally in a boring rut of about five dishes I "vary" myself with. And it's not as I eat crap food, there's always plenty of veggies a day, it's just not in very exciting dishes. I can't be bothered with cooking, I completely lack inspiration in the food department and I constantly find myself way over-hungry and then it has to be something quick and easy.

But I'm thinking that if I make a real effort in scouting just the special fruit and veggies of the season (though I will most likely cheat adding frozen ones too) I have to force myself to vary my cooking again. In theory it sounds like a great idea - it still remains to see if I can practice it too. Fingers crossed.

Carrots and courgettes are veggies I always have in the fridge, now there's a white cabbage there too. My repertoire has a new player, what will I make for dinner I wonder...

Are you good at eating in season?
Do you pretty much always have inspiration for a varied cooking?
And what are your favourite (vegetarian or vegan of course) dishes to make?

pink is in the details

My subconscious did the colour-matching again.
Birthday nails amazingly enough matched the shoe per diem boots
(which happened to be last year's birthday boots).
Silly little details like this is the icing on the cake.
Any day, not only birthdays actually.

The old fashioned pink polish is Essie Island hopping,
the silver on two nails is one of
the pretty bottles from the other day
(unfortunately lousy quality, despite top coat
it chipped and fell of completely after two days...).

the skeleton room

I reasonably regularly take advantage of different skincare and body treatments at beauty and massage schools in Stockholm, where there are pretty great discounts on treatments when the students practice their skills. Most of the time I've been very happy with the treatments (my favourite ones have been aromatherapy massage, medical pedicure and facials), a few times have been lousy -

for various reasons, like someone training to be a masseur refused to massage without wearing plastic gloves or that chiropodist to be who wasn't very interested in taking her time doing a good job with the pedicure. Not to mention a few guys training to be masseurs who actually stayed and chatted while I un-dressed and dressed. Seriously, I thought that was THE first thing you were taught in masseur school, to respect the privacy of clients. I suppose I should have complained, but I couldn't be bothered then. Now I would. -

Today, after a rather brutal session of zone therapy (I don't remember it being quite as painful in parts, maybe it's the age talking...) I caught a glimpse of this room. My immediate conclusion was;

oops, I guess this is what happens when the student treatments go terribly wrong.

So I suppose I shouldn't complain about lousiness above, as things could be so much worse. One could indeed end up in the skeleton room.

skin rescuer

still haven't found an all-year-round moisturizer that works for my skin. the aloe vera one from body shop that was lovely during the summer that was just isn't enough for my sad dry winter skin unfortunately.

and the classic kiehl's one doesn't do the pretty trick anymore either. probably an age thing, sigh. so i have high hopes for this one, skin rescuer from kiehl's too, which is supposedly good against redness too. fingers crossed.

also found out that kiehl's now has a recycle bottles in store-system in which you get bonus products. and even if one of course always recycles bottles and jars bonus or not, it is indeed nice to get a little sweet reward in life now and then.

what's your favourite facial product?

EDIT - during the hot summer of 2014 i found that this face cream is great for my skin actually. apparently it just isn't enough for my skin type during long, dry, cold winter months. but as a summer facial cream it gets lots of thumbs up!

love at first sight

Sometimes the unexpected happens, in a surprising place and at an unforeeseen time. Like finding your fellow pea in the same pod. As it did for wee Miffwinkle today, she met a li'l piggy and was immediately smitten (but did her best to remain calm) - wee piggy was (obviously) a tad bit more excited.

Not really sure if li'l piggy had a good life were we unexpectedly found him, hopefully this won't be the first and last time they met, Miffwinkle and Li'l Pig. I'm sure they'd have a wonderful, fun life together and accomplish great deeds complimenting eachothers strengths and weaknesses.

To be continued.

happy birthday to me ~

My wish for today is that it'll be exceptionally lovely
and dreamy in an unpretentious way.
Sunshine would be awesome and blue skies too,
cakes a plenty and my innermost wishes come true.



And for the year to come, my next chapter in life
to be filled with love, laughter, joy and kindness,
colours, creativity, magic and a dash of success
with a sprinkle of magic and serendipity too.

For that, Universe, I thank you so very much in advance ~

nailpolish eightlings

Just a silly and smile inducing little thing M picked up on a business trip - eight perky nailpolish beings. I feel very sorry for the bottle with a blank face though, poor thing.

words on creativity

One of my favourite talks from TEDxStockholm on Monday was that of Anna Linda Hultström who, after warming us all up with making us dance a bit and open up for flow, in an entertaining way talked about flow and creativity's important part in life.

Which of course I obviously totally get, but sadly still too many don't seem to.





I really enjoyed her slides. And who doesn't love a good and thoughtprovoking quote?

the cinema toilet

Public toilets are rarely something I get excited about. In fact I do my best to shy away from them. But I have to say I am quite smitten by this one. At recently renovated classic cinema complex Rigoletto in Stockholm you'll find this classy kind of restroom with a sofa in the shape of big, velvety pink cake and lots of fresh toilets so the queueing is easy breezy.

Not sure if the choice of wallpaper is the best though, you kind of get a straitjacket-padded cell feeling. But kind of cool too.

like cat like owner

'i have to say this and you really should take it as a compliment, your cats, you really look like your cats. or they look like you. the same features and facial expression. you know that photo of the red one on instagram the other day? spot on you!'

and i have to say, as far as look alike and looks compliments go, that's one of the sweetest ones i've ever gotten! (it's happened before, but that was many years ago but i thought it was a darlin' thing to say then too.)

apart from the fur/hairstyle little loaf and i were never really the like mistress like dog-pair. and to be honest i much prefer to be look alike with a cat.

and the notion of that i actually could get away with having a british shorthair avatar and still be recognized to be me when meeting people irl, that is pure brilliance as far as i'm concerned!

the photo that brought this discussion on was this one, let me introduce you to the feline equivalent of me ~

zigne, redspotted british shorthair

have an inspired and colourful october week

Had this absolutely top notch for a fika treat on Friday - an amazing cinnamon bun and a heavenly chocolate-crunch-toffee-nutty little pastry thingy from sourdough bakery Fabrique (one of the best sourdough bakeries in town) - and now the picture and the memories of the flavours and feelings that lovely fika brought will symbolize everything I want from this week to come.

The week leading up to my birthday - which funnily enough happens to be shared with another British Shorthair owner/blogger on the other side of the world - should and will be awesome in many many ways, I'm sure.

~ So bring on great and inspirational people, meetings and opportunities - the week will indeed start with the main Tedx Stockholm event

~ Bring on the happiness instigating colours galore

~ Bring on cosy, perfect fika moments with textures to enjoy in the company of intelligent conversations

~ And please, pretty please, bring sunshine too

Happy new October week one and all!

october full moon

It's a full moon out there tonight. And just as last time it met the sun. And no doubt it'll be difficult to get any sleep - because just as sure as I feel affected, low and headachey when the skies are grey, heavy and dull the full moon gets me tossing and turning in bed with too many thoughts swirling in my head.

How about you, are you affected by changes in weather and nature?

october heart

My days are full, which is partly great, partly not, but mostly good, I'm certainly not complaining. But granted I could do with being less scattebrained more focused on one task at the time, then I would probably feel my days were less full somehow.

On the other hand I do adore the cross-fertilization and thoughts awaken coming from not doing only one task at a time. So no, not really complaining about that either. Just mulling the facts of my life right now.

Since the days are full of other writing than in this particular blogosphere world of mine I don't get much time or energy to blog. But that is of course alright, that's life and blogging should never be an obligation.

I still believe in the I blog therefore I am as I wrote a year ago - when my life was oh so different, I love how much that have changed since! - but one thing that is truly dear about blogging is that it isn't static, it's dynamic and changeable. And right now, at this time in life, less is more in blog for me.

Have a lovely October weekend,
nature is vibrating in amazing
colours right now! Heart.

the cat in a tree

Granted (touch wood) I've had very few incidents with feline escape artists. But the littlest one, Ågot, has been intent on annoying me all summer with her outings up on the garden shed roof and leisurely walks over to the neighbour's roof (which apparently offers much better sun spots than our perfectly fine and sunny garden).

I've been so grateful she hasn't enticed her half sisters Red and White to follow suit.



Until now. Because this is who I found up on the garden shed roof the other day. And she wasn't nearly as clever and capable to get herself down as little sister. So after sauntering about up there for a couple of hours, unlike little sister deeming the height to high for jumping down, she tried to get herself down to ground level by climbing to the top of the tree.

When I got the cameras to snap a few photos her whole apparition oozed 'I'm fighting for my life up here and you take out the camera?!'.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I seriously doubt some individuals in my fabulous furry bunch are as clever as they like to think themselves to be.



NB No cat was harmed in the taking of these pictures. The silly little she got herself down eventually.

autumn circus nails

It's been far too long since I sported circus nails. So I played around with some autumnal colours and I rather enjoy the end result. The mix of muted tones and perky ones makes for the perfect autumn circus nails me thinks. And on the kind of glum, grey days we've had so far this week any sign of lovely colours matching the bright nature around us is most moodliftingly welcome!

the breakfast roll that didn't want to get eaten

Found this sourdough breakfast roll in the freezer today. With a rather peculiar look of "Please do not eat me!!!!" - reminding me slightly of Mr Weird Tomato - don't remember where I bought him, too many sourdough bakeries in Stockholm these days.

But eaten he was. And quite tasty at that.
Thank you, little screaming bread,
you made me a very pleased breakfast person this morning.

knitting a sweater, part III

From yarn purchase, to begin knitting, to this in less than two weeks. Hopefully in the upcoming weekend I'll be able to press and assemble a complete woolly and sweet sweater. Which will make a finished sweater process in two weeks. Which is a big deal in my world of (too) many crafty ideas, half-finished projects and the comfort of procrastination.

And since I have now written about the finished result I really do need to finish it too. Simple as that.



How's your yarn project for autumn coming along?

lemon tea

This tea was something unexpected and delightful I got to take home with me from the Mynewsday the other week, goodie bags are indeed rather enjoyable.

As much as I like Yogi teas I also find they are in general too strong for me to have in the evenings, but this lemon, dandelion, liquorice is lovely in every aspects actually. Taste- and sleepwise. Do try!

Do you have any new tea favourite this autumn?

pigeons on bikes

I wonder how many of those who park their bikes by this train station who are aware of exactly which fellas it is occupying guarding them during the days?

Or possibly the bike owners are fully aware of it being an awesome way to keep all those nasty bike thieves at bay.

Go pigeons!

happy october weekend ~

I know it was only the other day I posted autumn pictures in blog, but really, the colours are stunning right now! Now we're talking autumnal colours for really real here! And a bit of sun and blue skies doesn't hurt the eye either.

- I know the above picture looks scary, but it was them bobbaloos who thought trying the fly agaric would spice things up. I'm a bit worried though, fingers crossed there won't be any need for an emergency room bobbaloo visit during the night. Kit suggested the eating of fly alaric might give the small sized woollies flying capacities instead of being harmful. That would be awesome! -

Wishing you a colourful, wonderful and
inspired October weekend!

clever cat thursday ~ the surprised look of hairy innocence

a couple of hairy beings in their very hairy chair in which they (obviously) spend a lot of time cuddled up sleeping.

like mother like daughter (like grandmother), i heart that special clever (not) surprised look of innocence in british shorthairs.

the colour beauty of autumn

These snaps epithomize THE best thing about autumn - the colours. Autumn truly is without any shadow of a doubt the most colourful of seasons. Nature is simply fantastic.



And even if I can't embrace autumn completely, the fact that it is splendid in colours, that is something I can embosom from the bottom of my October-child heart of course.

mynewsday stockholm 2013

For the third year the Swedish company MyNewsdesk (a website for PR and brand management) hosted an event about just that, communication.

It was a day jampacked with inspiration as well as unfortunate yawn inducing lowpoints, and the in between. And once again, as too often, just because you are good within your field, really clever and awesome at your work, unfortunately that doesn't mean you're a great and engaging speaker with that special ability to convey your message in a pleasing and entertaining way (sans too much specialist language) that makes people feel inspired and wanting to learn more.

My three favourite speakers of the Mynewsday, with different messages wrapped up in a personal way were these;



Catarina Clöwe, who held a very heartfelt and fun talk about her creative personal ad looking for love as a gay woman. Which got a massive effect in social media and media - and yes she did find true love through her creativity.



Mats Adamczak, from Åland, who spoke about storytelling, engagement, stickiness - too much interesting information to process though, so I'm glad he has a slideshare to share online.



Renata Chlumska, who spoke very passionately about her adventures around the world and goal targeting - I am very sceptical about adrenaline junkies and people who feel the need to put themselves in danger to reach such goals (especially when they have children). But her attitude was very contagious and I'm a firm believer in focusing on goals, working towards them. She held a great pep talk!

I'm very pleased I got the new iPhone to work in time for the event, but juggling the camera (and editing, you can not post iPhone pictures without editing first, you just can't...) and three different Twitter-accounts simultaneously plus listen and process (new) information... it wasn't easy, but I made it (reasonably well)! It was a great day (minus some hickups) and also an exhausting day. But most of all, very inspiring and idea inducing in different ways. And you can't have too much of inspiring days and inspirational people, right? Right.

If you hadn't the opportunity to be at the event yourself, you can find it online next week here.



PS But really, the day would have been even more inspiring if people (including the audience) hadn't insisted on wearing the boring black 'colour' so much (and, in the case of the day, I don't care if it's the 'company colour' accents of red just isn't enough). Colour, people, colour is always true inspirational awesomeness! DS