september highlights

Hello there. 

It has been over two weeks since I blogged. (The reason is not that the blogoversary celebrations where heavy. Really.) And it certainly isn't for a lack of matters to blog about. I've written lots of posts in my head these past few weeks. None of which obviously haven't made it to online status. And now I'm not really sure where to begin.

So, this won't be structured. This will be deeply emotional, this will be light-hearted and possibly frivolous, this will be about sorrow and happiness. In other words, this will be a bit of a long post.

:: First of all - I didn't get the part-time job I had hoped for. They said they'd settled for someone with slightly more experience of the tasks, but they thought I was great too. At least they took the time to call me up and tell me that. Which is a rare rare thing these days alas... Apparently they never got in touch with any of the referees either so the person they hired must have been oustanding in their fields.

But you know what? The more I thought about the job, the more trapped I felt. Sure it was within easy access from home by train - but it would also mean crossing the county border thus forcing me to pay 100% more for the monthly train card. Sure it was a brilliant half-time job - but instead of me working 2,5 days per week they wanted me to work half-days every day. Which is just crazy since that would mean I had to waste 1,5 hours commuting every day and not really being able to do my best for neither them nor running my business with focus for the rest of the time. And having to comply with that schedule for one year - scary and limiting. Also, the salary level crossing the county borders (even if really, it is a suburb of Stockholm still) means lower payment. Which would obviously mean quite low given half-time plus that mad train ticket as well as the stress of having to deal with working in an office environment every darn day for a year.

So all and all, in hindsight I feel this was for the best. Now I'm all open to exciting stuff instead, that suits my lifestyle and what I want from life. To be honest, I was more upset with the fulltime marketing and community manager job that never happened - because if it had been as great as it sounded on paper and felt after the first interview, it would have been something new and exciting to deal with.

So I'm all good about this. In fact I'm proud of how great I am at this resilience thing. And I'm looking forward to more work and clients that suit my needs and wants better. Welcome, welcome.

:: The Indian summer weather has been pretty glorious for most of the days, sure the evenings and early mornings for most days have become distinctively chillier. But the average temperature has been around +15C degrees, some days even more. From a global warming perspective this scares me a lot. But in the here and now I try to enjoy the surprising warmth and generous sunny days, the vitamin D.

:: Since September 1st I've been consulting per hour for my May client. Which is pretty good, it may not be creatively exciting tasks as such, but I know the organisation and what they want, the people are really nice and I have been able to invoice a decent amount since then. I've calculated that if I could do this regularly - and obviously it doesn't have to be for this client only - for 3 days/week I would almost meet my monthly goal in what I want as a salary. And it's enough that I pop by their office on the odd occasion to talk things through. Perfect.

:: It is now six months since M passed away. For me to move on to the next stage in the sorrow process (whatever that may be, I'm not sure myself) I realise I have to tell the people that have hurt me the most during his passing, his relatives, just how I feel and have felt about their behaviour. 

So I wrote draft a couple of weeks ago - only finally writing it was a relief - and have returned to it, rewritten and thought about it since. I will email it this week. I just want to tell my side of the story, I don't expect or want any explanations or discussions. They have clearly decided to delete my importance from M's life, something I will never be able to forget, obviously its incredibly hurtful for a lot of reasons. Perhaps I will be able to forgive some day, but not now. But just sending this email is catharctic and important for me. Not doing so would seriously belittle both myself and M, and our years together.

:: I've been meaning to write about that organic. muesli I 'discovered' at the Yelp event in May, but I've never gotten around to it. But since I won an annual consumption worth of it last week on Instagram, I might as well write a few words right now.

It's a lovely, German brand called MyMuesli - which encapsulate a lot of things I love: organic, colourful, healthy, vegetarian and vegan (when the products don't contain honey or dairy products like chocolate) with a dash of humour. When you sample the mueslis in store there's always oat milk or soygurt available too.

As far as I know they only have stores in Germany, Switzerland, UK, Netherlands and Sweden (Stockholm), possibly you can order online in the rest of Europe too. You can either mix your own unique muesli (which makes for endless variations) or chose one of their regular lovelies. Because yes, lovely they are. Most of the mueslis I've tried has been great (with a couple of exceptions), but my favourites so far is the Paleo Coconut, Mango, Berry and the brand new one as seen in the happy winning picture above - StockholmMuesli. Lovely design of one of my favourite views of Stockholm and a crunchy, fruity granola-like muesli. Only available in Stockholm or the Swedish webstore obviously (like four other limited editions for Sweden).

I'm such a happy, happy winner! Obviously.

This makes my third awesome win in an Instagram competition in a year. I'm thinking I should add this special knack to my CV.

:: The trip to Freiburg is now booked! One might think booking through a travel agent would make things so much smoother, right? Well it has not. Because even if I'm pretty flexible about dates, it has been quite tricky to get a room at a conveniently located central hotel that accept vouchers. But now I have one - and since I definitely prefered that over a more expensive hotel, for various reasons, I also get to fly with a bit of luxury added - as well as the plane- and train tickets (from Frankfurt to Freiburg, looking forward to travel by train in Germany!). It's weird that it's more expensive to travel solo than in pair, so the 4 days for 2 did not extend into at least a week for 1, but 5 days and 4 nights. Which I suppose is rather perfect for a solo trip as this.

So the week before my birthday I'll head south and enjoy some lovely, lovely days exploring a green city on my own. And before I had even booked the trip I did get that new suitcase I contemplated, it's darling and in bright, apple green. Ready to be filled my many, new and fabulous memories.

:: Early March I saw this stunner of a coat from Marimekko online. All flowery in orange, yellow and white on a black background. It wasn't obvious what kind of material it was made of, but I saved the photo on my mobile and have had a crush on that coat ever since. 

When it finally turned up in the Autumn collection last month it turned out to be a padded coat devoid of animal matter, which made me want it even more. Rather pricey, but not nearly as prices as some of their other coats or clothes. I thought I might at least try it on in store to see if it was something I should continue to dream of or not. It was gorgeous. The upper sleeves were too tight for me, but the rest was just as stunning as in that initial picture.

I've thought a lot about this coat. In fact, as ridiculous as it may seem, it has become symbolic in many ways. Apart from its gorgeousness - the print is a revival from 1970 called Pieni Pioni - it's vegan (I'm not shucking out my old wool clothes or leather shoes, but at least I can make better choices from now on) and completely different both in fabric and style from anything else I have in my wardrobe. It's another kind of happy coat than the Marimekko one from 3 years ago, for another type of weather.

I decided it would be one of those new, positive memories, from a year that turned my life upside down in sad sad way, and what would be better than give it to myself as an early birthday gift? From deciding on that to it arriving at my door, less than 48 hours.

And you know what, it fits so well! Just as the above mentioned happy coat #1, even if the model is very different. And given it'll be a great autumn/winter coat for many years it's a reasonable price really. Welcome fabulous happy coat #2!

There, happiness, sorrow, frivolity and emotions - two weeks of my life turned into one blog post of highlights.