august 2025 reflections

 

Hello. August is here. 

After July being a miserable, climate emergency heatwave. Torn with the livestreamed Gaza genocide (and with more genocides that get so much less publicity…), facism on the rise, the continued invasion war in Ukraine and a mindboggingly stupid, narcissistic toddler president on the other side of the pond. Life is heavy, for far too many reasons.

At least the temperatures have dropped (to soon for what used to be a regular Nordic summer of course, but here we are) and it is again possible to breath and get a decent night’s sleep. Which has lifted my spirits somewhat.

Earlier this week I even had a pretty decent day, running little errands and treating myself to a soy latte to go. Having a fairly good hair day and feeling pretty spiffy in outfit per diem. 

Maybe I should document it with a selfie? 

Got a sweet comment ’Looks spectacular!’ to which I replied ’Thank you kindly! Feeling anything but though, a case of unintentional fake it til you make it, perhaps.’

And that pretty much sums up me and my life currently. And have for quite some time now. It is impossible to feel motivated, worthy my dreams, capable, strong and overall awesome. I’m. just. so. tired. 

And yes, admittedly I loath AI, it drains us and will be our downfall. 

So in awaiting that. Here are a few other good things August have brought me so far -

After using the Swedish Skinome fresh skincare daily for 15 + months I still didn’t feel it brought the positive change to my dry rosacea skin I had hoped for and expected. It may not be the priciest of skincare regimes, but when their cleansing cream I added to my skincare regime gave me the most horrific rosacea flair up I’ve ever experienced I decided to look elsewhere for relief.

Ended up stumbling over the classic Swedish pharmacist brand ACO, which has been around since I was a kid. And just because I saw that this particular cream for sensitive and dry skin happened to be vegan my decision was a quick one. 

It also didn’t hurt that I got two of this large tub for 10% of the price I paid for the Skinome bottles. I’ve been using it twice per day for 3 weeks now and if not perfect my skin feels more supple and soft.

I’m still wanting to find a cream that actually lessen the rosacea redness, but just getting rid of the dry patches and getting a softer skin means so so much.

Consistent cat cuddles always means so so much. 

This tree has been one of my big worries this year. Inherited from the previous house owner, M cut it down many years ago because it became so unruly and grew to close to the fence I share with the neighbour. 

Over the years since it began to grow again. I have always been able to trim it myself. Until this year when it’s branches became to thick for my weak wrists and my tools. And the more the tree grew the more it stretched over the fence into the neighbours’ and with the harsh winds we have had this summer the higher risk the swaying against the fence would cause harm. 

I asked my next door neighbour (the one that helped me with the overgrown shrubs on the front of my house last autumn) to help and he kindly agreed to. So last week the tree was cut down.

The electric chain saw was of such poor quality so he ended up using my useless tools, that turned out to not be so useless with more strength behind the tools. I felt like the stereotypical feeble, weak woman. 

Still the most important thing got done. And I’m so grateful for the much needed help. It’s sad the tree had to be cut down, it was so lush and green, and appreciated by insects. But now it also feels like such a relief, and one less thing to worry about.

The work isn’t fully done of course, the tree needs to be cut down in smaller pieces and lugged to the recycling, but that’s not so urgent.

I am so very ready for THRIVING again not just SURVIVING.

Planting goals ✅ Harvesting dreams welcome!

I also baked vegan bagels last week. As I couldn’t remember the bagel recipe I used earlier I ended up using the first (seemingly good) I found online. The dough turned out to be much much softer than doughs usually are. I let it prove 3 hours insted 1,5 that the recipe called for, and it felt like a reasonable dough at first.

It was impossible to turn the dough into bagel shape, or reasonable size, so ended up with very small rolls instead. The taste and texture was perfect though! Will not use that recipe next time, but the end result was quite satisfying anyway. Bagels are great but bagel rolls are rather good too.

Hey Universe, I truly need your help now, please. More positive changes. More joy. More long term solutions (although as dire as things are at the moment, I would be ever so grateful for satisfying short term ones too). 

More kindness and compassion for all. More justice. High time for fresh new impactful beginnings. What will be the next step?