tired thursday

Feeling a bit under the weather, tired, a touch of snivels, a bit of cough, achy muscles, no real appetite, uninspired and sad, for no particular reason, funk and blah - that sums me up at the moment. An unpleasant mix of a cold and spring funk perhaps. I'll have to wait it out and take it easy for a while I think. What do you do to get your mojo back, your inspiration and go ahead? Any suggestions much appreciated.

And to top that off I bit a tooth off yesterday, an old, nasty amalgam filling broke - it was meant to happen one day, I suppose I should be grateful it didn't until now... - so tomorrow I'll have to get that fixed. At a local dentist this time, I have to say that I'm not very happy about all the money I had to pay for the root filling nastiness last year, so I'll try the general dentistry this time instead. And not the private dentist I've been going to for some 20 years now. One might say I've lost *a bit* of faith in him after last year's ordeal. Hopefully this will be a quick and easy thing, plus fingers crossed, not as costly. I got a very very nice impression from the very service-minded nurse who answered the phone. Plus they sent me an SMS to remind me of the appointment. Small nice gestures you don't always get.

So, no walk and talk tomorrow, but a dentist appointment instead. Not really the way I had hoped to finish March. Things can only get better now, right? Right.

The only clever cat tuesday about this post is a photo (there will be a proper kitten post soon, there really will). Zigne perfectly illustrating how I feel, tired and black/white. But this funk too shall pass. Of course.

five friday snaps

Yes, getting out of bed early is hellish, but I did it, I really did. The sun shone, the skies were incredibly blue and it was a gorgeous day - ie a perfect day for walk and talk. And it was a lovely such, I'm glad I went. Although I could have skipped that strawberry jam I managed to take with me in handbag. Had a pancake with strawberry jam at IKEA after the walk and somehow a dollop of jam thought it was a nice idea to tag along when I left. The content of handbag did get a bit sticky, hopefully I got it all out.

I spotted a yellow Easter Hoptimist. I now want a yellow Easter Hoptimist very much.

Apparently yellow is my current colour of obsession interest. I would love a yellow handbag, I spotted a gorgeous vegan one, but then it was sadly discontinued.

We met a sweet cat lady. I have a fair share of sweet cat ladies in my life already, so I just said a thorough 'hi' to this one before we each went our own way.

Then it was time for the first outdoors lunch this year, yayness! Greek salad and sourdough bread at Bakgården.

As most of you know by now, apart from shoe per diem and such I prefer to be behind camera and not in front - the last issue was the silly dreaded new identity card thing... - but I felt a little spring has sprung capture was called for. Plus I need a proper reminder to wear the fabulous Isle of Skye tweed hat before weather gets too warm. And possibly its tweed friend too.

Happy weekend one and all!

thursday thoughts

Just a few random thoughts today.

~ I didn't thought my memory was this short, but apparently I wrote about the red graters in two posts, granted in the first one I hadn't used them yet, but still, silly silliness. That's one reason why one should always add the blogpost-link to the Flickr-photo's description I guess... It's not as if I have only very few photos to chose from, or few things to write about. I don't *have to* kind of write a post twice.

~ I will do my very best to get out of bed early tomorrow morning and go have a walk-and-talk. Promise. I have already visualised my presence there. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Or well, at least there and reasonably talkative. The weather is suppose to be great, sunshine and around +10C, wow! It's just that it is really nice and creatively great to stay up late, to get out of bed early is on the other hand very, very creatively and bodily challenging.

~ Finding lots of nuisance and mis-information in the tax- and accountancy-related part of having-your-own-business - this is so not something I will be doing myself next year, but only a way to learn and know how it basically works initially - it is laughable to think that tax law and business administration was actually one of my fortes once upon a law-student-time. Now I just find it basically annoying and time-consuming.

~ And while we're on the subject of timeconsuming nuisance, if there's anyone who happens to be reading this and is a pedagogical wizard on WordPress, please oh please raise your helping hand. I'm struggling with a Premium theme that simply refuses to upload properly as a plug-in should. I've googled, I've searched for answers with solutions that actually works for real and not just in theory, so far all in vain. So if you happen to be interested in helping, I would be very very happy and grateful. And if you so wish, will offer payment in chocolate.

~ The fabulous blue boots might be the one single reason for me not wanting the spring/summer-shoe season to arrive. Because if there was such a thing as being in love with a colour, that blue hue is very high on my love-list. But of course, even blue shoes need a good rest and hibernation. And there are quite a few warm-season-shoes that I very much look forward to wearing again. Still, the blue boots rock...

~ It's been an unjustifiable long time since the two tiny - though not so tiny anymore - Z:s got a post of their own. That will be adjusted next week. There are loads of photos that needs tweaking and now when the weather is so much better they can go and have a sniff and explore in the garden (where the photo light is endlessly much better). But I can say as much for now, that they are a true delight and just fantastically fun to watch with all their individual quirks and traits (many of them so obviously inherited from either mum or dad). And sweet, oh so sweet - I love how I've been so blessed with being able to spend so much time with them right from the start, every day. I'm not sure they're equally impressed with all the carrying around, the cuddling and the kisses they've been *forced* to endure since basically day one - but who cares. Cuddles and kisses galore it is, that's what makes a most purring world go round.

~ I'm so looking forward to a little trip late April. For my mum's birthday we're heading east, she and I, to Helsinki. We gave her a trip as a birthday gift five years ago, a promise, I'm ashamed to admit for different reasons, had not been honoured, until now. So this is that trip. She got to chose destination, but we've had talked about returning to Helsinki for many years now. It's such a lovely, beautiful city within such an easy reach - and the fact that it's an Swedish-speaking city too, well that doesn't hurt with a travel-companion that doesn't speak English - with loads of great cafés, design - also being the design capital of 2012 -, fabulous architecture and an appealing ambiance. And these days it can also boast of having an El Naturalista store - that is certainly something very few cities can say. Walking the streets, travel with the cute tram, having cakes at Fazer Café, oh it's going to be great fun I'm sure!

~The yellow Lovikka mittens are finished. It's just the embroidering left, I can't decide on exactly which colours I want. I'm, as usual, partial to the bright pink one, but it feels tad silly to have the same colour as with my pink pair - not that I'd wear them simultaneously. Will finish them this weekend and then they'll go spend summer hibernation with pink cowl and friends. I have to say I'm quite proud of the fact that the time frame of buying the yarn - finish the project has been this short. Rather unlike me. In a good way.

walk and talk and yellow

To get up really, really early on a cold, cold morning (around -15C) to head to IKEA (it takes about 45 minutes by train and bus for me, 10 minutes by car, for those who have a car and ad river's license that is) where we were to meet for this week's walk and talk networking - admittedly that didn't fill me with utter joy when it happened to me this morning. But I did it, I actually did it - I even laid out layer upon layer of suitable clothes to wear to endure the cold the evening before. And THAT does not happen often in my world - and I'm so pleased I did. We were about 10 people that braved the cold and went for a brisk walk in the vicinity of IKEA - it's situated in a rural area, a proper green belt with which offers great walks - and then had a simple breakfast at just that, IKEA (first for me).

It was really invigorating, every ten minutes we changed conversation partner, some people one has more common grounds with than others and this was such a great way to just exchange a few words, see what we could possibly do for eachother in terms of business and then perhaps move it to the next level. Or not. It was unpretentious, open-ended and all that walking and fresh air surrounded by a gorgeous winter wonderland, it was truly uplifting.

This particular walk - the walk and talk-sessions are held in several suburbs all over Stockholm and in other cities too - takes place every Friday morning. I will definitely attend more of them and hopefully meet and greet more people.

On my way back home I ran a few errands - I picked up my new identity-card, which turned out quite alright in the end. Now I don't have to silly worry about that until 2017. But hey, there's always a passport that needs to be renewed... - and just by pure luck when I was picking up a few office supplies I noticed they had lots of different Moleskines and quite a few of these special edition PacMans - and Snoop and The Little Prince - that I had been searching for last year. And here they were even cuter in a yellow strawberry version! One can't have too many notebooks.

That I then noticed a yellow Marimekko file lying tad forlorn on top of a shelf, asked if they had more or possibly the Marimekko notebooks I've used up several of but have in vain been looking for for years now and the answer was well no but we'll get more of them soon - in my book that was just brilliant. The sun shone all day and home with me came two sunny office supplies that will have there obvious place in the pink office. Such a befitting round off to the week -

Wishing you a splendidly sunny winter weekend ~