march, easter, april 2024

This will be a quick, short Easter post (or maybe I’ll continue to add to it later, haven’t decided yet).

March hasn’t been very eventful, but with the return of light (despite some snowy days) there’s hope of life after a long, dark, cold and awful winter. And that alone is cause of a little celebration I’d say. It finally feels easier to breath somehow. And for that I’m very grateful for your days, March of 2024!

Easter, which has always been my favourite holiday/long weekend (without reservation until M passed away on Easter week Wednesday in 2016, now I’ve come to appreciate it again, but it’s also a slightly bittersweet weekend for me…)

This year it has mostly been spent watching movies and TV-series (the weather hasn’t been great), drinking a lot of tea, finishing a couple of books (Easter weekend is for reading crime fiction - tradition imported from Norway ’påskekrim’ - so that’s what I’ve mainly been doing.

My goal was also to finally finish that fluffy strawberry sweater I joyfully began knitting a year ago. I ran out of the pink colour when I was about to finish the second arm last year. 

Had to come up with a creative solution, as it would be costly to send for a couple of pink skeins from Norway (the only seller) just for that. 

Then the summer heat came, no time for knitting wolly things. And then the cold autumn/winter made it impossible to use knitting needles in a comfortable way. 

So here we are. And I still haven’t picked up the needles yet. But there’s still one day left of Easter weekend…! 🍓

March also brought one last vegan semla moment of the best kind. Which made the total this year to five, consumed over three months.

With snow/ice free streets a plenty, I also had one day of wearing high heels. Which is a very rare thing after the pandemic, when sneakers (to my great surprise) truly stepped up as my new reliable shoe-friends. So wearing high heels, or medium for that matter, have become rather awkward. 

But I’m also thinking it’s a good way to use different muscles. No long walks in these obviously, but it felt like an accomplishment to do some errands in these just before the weekend. And then some extra stretching.

Long term readers might remember that these boots was a birthday gift (El Naturalista) many years ago. I still love the style, comfortable design, the pink colour, I just don’t wear them as much.

Have been toying with the idea of selling off some rarely used shoes/boots (and I already have with some, without feeling sad and nostalgic), but these and a few others are still attached to memories I’m not ready to part with. And as the shoes still fits…

The tights are Snagtights fabulous ones (I never wear any other tights than these ones, anymore), in one of my favourite colours Raspberry. Very perky and joyous it is! 🩷

Just like the plantbased Easter candies from Swedish candy maker Bubs. Surrounded by the old bunch of Easter sonny angels - and as the slogan goes ’he may bring you happiness’ 💛

The best meal this Easter weekend, that’s nearly over alas, was the plantbased cream tea with scones we had on Easter Sunday. Not sponsored (alas) by Marimekko (or any other brand obviously) but as you know by now, the love for the colourful and bold dessign in long lasting quality runs deep in me.

So the Easter table is set with a mix of old, second hand pieces and a few new ones that I will continue to enjoy for many many years. 💛🤍💜

I recall mentioning I was going to do a Maria Nila vegan colour hair pak to welcome March in style, in my last post? The colour Bright Red turned out great, and a few washes later it’s still quite visible (even if it’s slowly fading back to grey, via pink). 

With the hope of life-feeling that March brought, I do continue to be true to myself and hopeful that April 2024 will finally bring that hard worked for positive changes and new (plantbased communicative) opportunities. Surely it’s time to shine and change now? 

Many, grateful thanks in advance, April, your predecessor did well, now it’s up to you to carry that torch to greatness, mkay? Welcome happiest of Aprils!

🌱❤️🌱❤️🌱❤️🌱❤️🌱

thank you february, welcome march 2024

A month later life continues. Without nothing really exciting, promising, hopeful or joyful happening on a personal level.

And the world craziness with wars, violence, genocide still exist. 

Not to mention how little is done to battle climate disaster, loss of biodiversity, the tipping points. The focus is solely on weapons and mayhem.

It’s rough to be a human who believes in kindness, compassion, peaceful co-existence and animal rights in times like these. 

That said, my little pockets of joy this past month have been something like follows (Blogger/Google doesn’t allow photos to be uploaded as easy as it has been, so I made some collages instead. 

February was a very capricious and rather terrifying month weatherwise. The temperatures dropped way below zero degrees Celcius one day and went up to +7 ish the day after. Rain, melting snow, a lot of ice (and broken limbs) that made it scary to go outside (even with Icebugs). I have continued to do a lot of reading.

There have also been regularly heavy snowfalls in between the rain and ice. So in the image below you can see the change basically from a day to another during a week. It wasn’t very nice. At all.

I tried to make some hearty attempts around Valentine’s Day which basically coincided with Fat Tuesday (semla!). And we went for the best (vegan) semla in town at Bageri Passion when the weather permitted. It was amazing as usual (pictures further below not in a collage).

I had looked forward to finally make something 🩷❤️💜 fun out of those Snagtights I got a year ago. So even if the weather didn’t allow a change of footgear, I combined the tights with that vintage Marimekko dress I snatched up past autumn and a Marimekko Unikko cardi. Felt very granny toddler stylish.

And talking about Marimekko, did you know that their iconic Unikko (poppy) pattern turns 60 this year? My number one favourite pattern (obviously) and it’s celebrated with special pieces for the jubilee. I treated myself to this lovely fabric bag with the Unikko poppy looking like a pentecost lily. It looks amazing I think.

The bag of Semla tea from Tehuset Java was really great too. Not much left now alas. But I hope to have the opportunity to enjoy one more of those Best Ever-semlas before he Swedish semla-season is over this year…

The rest of the food the photos here are of the vegan meals and some fika we’ve enjoyed in February.

The only really disappointment was that plantbased Red Velvet semla I opted for at Espresso House when I waited for my mum’s dentist appointment to finish. Instead of the expected almond paste they’d put raspberry jam in the semla-bun. Which was rather yuk. I should have asked/read the sign of ingredients… 

The last treat of the month (as I’m feeling very much like the garden goyle in the picture) was a scalp massage brush, a jar of Bright Red vegan colour refresher from Maria Nila. Ideally I wanted Cherry Red but apparently that colour has been discontinued alas. From the pictures I took when I last used Bright Red (2019?) it looked alright, so I chose that. REF is a vegan styling paste that the hairdresser used and I quite liked. It’s really difficult to style the hair the way I like it. I don’t expect any miracles with this, but it should be reasonably okay.

I also enjoy the fact that all three products are of the similar size, shape and make for a very nice colour trio. The brush is just lovely. I’m doing the colouring next time I wash my hair this week. Hopefully perkier times are coming! Soon.

Just a slow fashion ootd I chose on my name day on February 22, the other week  - it was the first day this year I could actually choose some other shoes that the Icebugs boots, these vegan sneakers are also from the Icebug brand but just really great, sustainable sneakers. That alone was cause for celebrating I’d say. 

The duo tights are also from Snagtights (I really placed a large order a year ago, and I haven’t inaugurated half of them yet. It’s nice to be able to feel a little joy over the idea of chosing a new pair of tights, a new colour, without having to actually buy more of them…). They’re fun!

Unfortunately I got stuck in that horrible train barrier that day (because my mum moved to slowly) and it struck really hard on my left hand (the bruise is visible on my left hand in the first image). That bruise is still there two weeks later, and the hand is sore. 

That was definitely something I could’ve done without on my Name Day… I didn’t even find any organic tulips to get for myself. All I got was this bruise. And that awful Red Velvet semla.

Anyway, a few days in to March, which is concidered the first month of spring in Sweden, but winter can still come back with a vengeance, life feels a bit lighter. And the days are somewhat brighter. We’ve even had glorious sunshine for a few days this past week.

I’m still really tired, and naps are plenty. It has been a rough winter. A rough couple of years, and before that a couple of rough covid years. And before that my whole life changed when M passed away, I had to reinvent and find myself again. (And I’m not fully found yet 🤷🏻‍♀️) So I suppose this fatigue of sorts isn’t in any way surprising. Just exhausting.

With March arriving my plan is to get back to the morning walks, which haven’t really been a regulat thing since I got sick back in October. Hopefully that will help with the depleted energy levels too.

I’m still waiting for my dream project/client/job to appear. 2024, it is high time now! I hope you’ll show me the prosperous, kind way, March. 💚

Thank you February, you didn’t offer much fun or exciting change, but I did finish that UX-writing course, I had time to read a lot, to think, to dream, to plan meals and to take naps. Sometimes that will have to be good enough. So thank you for that, February 2024. 🩷