icecream chairs

Stumbled over these chairs in Budapest - yes, it was at an icecream shop - and realised that the world would be a much happier, fun place with more icecream chairs.

Or, if you will, more moments, more design and details signalling humour and lightheartedness. Because we all, in various degrees, have to handle those dark, troublesome times too. They are much easier to deal with if we are able to fill the other times with more joy, laughter and love. And (more than) a bit of silliness.

Icecream chairs, I heart you.

happy friday the 13th

I hope your Friday the 13th is turning out to be magical
(because 13 is really a lucky number, you know)!

And remember, do not let anything gloom looming steal your
Friday sugar bun fun. If the bobbaloos can do it, so can you!

two happy muses

Some days a perfect soy latte with your name all over it can be synonymous with happiness.
Today I had one, which was rather nice of course, but the most happiness instigating thing of the day was the (as always) inspiring, wise, silly, smart, thought-provoking hours of conversations, working and planning I had with one of my business partners.

I love how we ALWAYS make eachother laugh until we basically cry, how alike we think and yet how we also make eachother see things and decisions in new lights (and what a relief that can be when we've struggled with certain things, different things).

I am most happy how we found eachother during one of those walk & talk sessions, that we later met up for fika, that we decided we both would love to have a project together and that we've since six months back spent countless hours with wonderful, uplifting, brainstorming conversations over coffee. That our respective competences compliment and inspire eachother fabulously and that our ideas have now been put together into our brilliant (if I may say so, yes of course I may!) project Two Happy Muses - creative workshops in work joy (website and workshops only in Swedish at the moment).

Yes, the Swedish word for it is "arbetsglädje", when I look for the proper translation in English the only one I get is "work satisfaction" and that really isn't what it's all about (that's only a side effect). No it is about finding pride and joy in your workplace, realising you can (should) own responsability for your work environment (as well as the world around us). Simply put, people who like going to their place of work, who find it meaningful and empowering are more productive and satisfied. Which of course benefit the results for the company. And then connecting those dots with the world around us in thinking about and striving for sustainability in sharing is caring.

We are now officially launched and we would absolutely love to help you and your company connect those dots of joy, work, sustainability through our fabulastic workshops
(in Swedish only at the moment).
Interested in hearing more about this?
Have a look at our website and
please contact us via the contact information there.
Welcome to Two Happy Muses
aka Catherine & Pia ~

for the love of trams

I think public transportation is a brilliant thing - if well thought through, well-built, well-kept and used by people who actually know how to act in a decent way - and I just do not get societies which are built around the excessive use of cars. Bad for the environment, bad for the waistline and bad for the wallet.

As a recent reminder of just how bad a lot of excessive driving really is for the environment and health, with the recent presidential visit in Stockholm, pretty much the majority of the inner city streets where closed off for traffic and the emissions dropped drastically. I wish politicians could learn from this, put more money and resources into public transportation, I wish drivers could make an effort and cut down on their excessive driving.



Which brings me to my favourite type of public transportation, the tram. Adore it. But I don't fancy the Stockholm trams we have these days, too modern and therefore dull and uninspiring. (Apart from the special cafe tram above. Which I, believe it or not, have yet to try.)



What I thoroughly enjoy is riding trams when on trips, love the Helsinki tram-system (not only because they have free wi-fi, which in itself is awesome) and the way in which you can have a great and unpretentious sightseeing around the city with it. I digged the trams in Lisbon, because they were so pretty, old, rickety and a bit scary due to their borderline ramshackleness. And I totally fancied the trams in Budapest, their opened windows offered sweet relief from the summer heat as well as lovely views and easy transport.



What's your favourite kind of public transport?
And do you have a favourite city/place for it?

when brit meets pug

now and then we get distinguished company in the shape of the pug named malte.

he's indeed thrilled about the cats - but not as clever and stubborn as little loaf could be in regard to chasing the not very impressed cats - they are not equally thrilled about him. but some of them are quite curious about the snuffling strange visitor.

when brits meet pug.

coffee and consequences

one of these days i will possibly learn not to have coffee after 2 pm if i want to sleep.
if i don't want to act like a slug the following day.

today has been that kind of latter day.
i'm sure tomorrow will improve.
since today has been a day without coffee.

how's your relationship with coffee?

happy 8th blogoversary ~

That eight years have now passed since I began my first tentative try on blogging is difficult to grasp, so much has happened, the good and the bad and the in-between, the highs and the lows, the love, the hate, the indifference.

This past year I've seen a distinct change in blogging habits, we may continue writing and posting ourselves, but most of us don't read and comment other blogs as much as we used to. Which is a pity, since there are a lot of good and inspiring words written out there.

Thank you all who still read,
thank you even more you who still take the time to comment,
your comments are treasured indeed.

Hope you'll treat yourself to a nice piece of cake today and
celebrate the marvellous thing that is the 8th blogoversay with me!

eating out - drömkåken

Drömkåken translates 'The Dream shack' and it's a rather fabulous, quirky café/shop situated in an old oratory in the middle of the countryside some miles north of Stockholm, in the vicinity of Norrtälje. Their motto is "We want to make people happy" and with a colourful house, both outside and in, bright,



bold colours, quirky furnitures and details everywhere, a vast, welcoming veranda, a lawn with a view over field upon field and everywhere inviting tables and chairs creating an atmosphere of Pippi Longstocking meets Barbie that is just what you get there, the happy feeling.



It doesn't hurt they serve quite lovely food, pastries and fika too.

Sometimes they have entertainments and performances there and you can also hire the place for private functions. Their little shop sells trinkets, toys and all sorts of must-haves (many things from fabulous Danish company Rice).



It takes about an hour for us to get there by car, but it makes for a very nice toy car outing and that's just what we had today. It has been such a glorious sunny summery day - I am totally going to soak all this sun and light up, who knows how long it'll last! - and the drive was lovely and refreshing as usual.



And the lunch was fancy and fabulous. Thank you, September Saturday ~



Drömkåken Café & Butik - the website, kindly put, needs a lot of improvement...
Sättraby 159
SE-760 31 Edsbro
+46 (0)175 - 630 06

what i learnt this friday

Turns out Fridays seem to be days with quite a few lessons learnt and revelations had. This is what I learnt (and got confirmed) today;


~ I learnt that this vertical bar | is apparently called "pipe" and that you find it at the < > key on a PC-keyboard.



~ I really do not enjoy cheesy food. And I hate having meals without plenty of veggies. It makes me feel bloated and unsatisfied - and I can't believe people rave about this taquería, the lack of veggies and the only vegetarian option being different queasadillas left me utterly disappointed. So not my type of food or place. Will not frequent again.


~ I demand a lot of myself, both quality- and quantity-wise, I'm usually harder on myself than I am on others (well at least when I know I'm great at something) when I don't live up to the standards I know/think I should live up to. I hate not having done a competely excellent job in every aspect right from the start - despite knowing that we all make mistakes, we can't grasp totally new concepts completely from day one and with constructive feedback we can only get better. Still hard on myself.


~ When I know I may not have done the usually proofreading on my own texts (due to pouring a lot of time and energy into the texts themselves) and the proofreading feedback only holds minor mistakes (and some being a case of subjective opinion rather than grammar rules set in stone) I see it in the positive light of 'obviously I'm so good at this that even when I'm doing it a tad half-hearted the errors need fixing aren't worse than that' - which is rather sweet and stimulating. And next time I can do better since I know I'm on the right track text-wise.



~ Apparently bellyache due to too much cheesy food can be neutralized by a soy latte and something chocolatey (ie much like eating a carrot or two prevents the possible damaging effects of having a pastry). I'm glad the bobbaloos always know the perfect remedy for any setback.


~ Having an accountant really is a relief and takes the load of book-keeping of a pair of not-very-interested-in-the-numbers-like-that shoulders - although admittedly I think I should be able to do this myself (business economics and tax law were two of my favourite courses while studying law, though you wouldn't think so today given my ignorence and utter uninterest in the matter) and I would much rather spend money on other matters. But still, I suppose this is the price one has to pay for not having to worry about this particular part of administrating your own business.

And granted, it is nice to have someone to ask 'stupid' and practical questions regarding finances and tax regulations.

~ September can be a truly lovely month, both weather- and otherwise. No sign, apart from colder, darker evenings, of summer being over. It has been a fantastic, sunny, warm first autumn week - I wish for at least three more to come! (Although why weird people insist on bundling up in winter coats, boots and woolly scarves already is one of life's great mysteries. As if six months of that being a climate necessity isn't enough. Jeez...)


~ When you KNOW you're the peachy perfect person for a certain matter, you've been well beyond patient while proving that, mollycoddling in order to get things done (when you really would like to shake things - or a certain person - into realising this is the right and awesomely successful and inspiring thing to do), being absolutely charming, empathetic, irresistable, insisting, sincerely well-meaning and you still do not get the OBVIOUS reaction of delight and joy (given the situation that really really REALLY needs improving).

Well, that can be both frustrating (which goes without saying) but also incentivizing. Because, seriously, this need to be happening, for countless of reasons. And really, I am so without a doubt the one and only for this, devoted to a great thing that needs more attention. Passionate people will bring great things to the table and make a difference.

Now pondering the next creative step.

While doing just that the jury of me is still very much out on what I think about what does the fox say...

Happy weekend,
one and well-deserving all!

when the sun meets the moon

Got this simple, quite lovely solar power lamp some months ago.
Alongside the led light birds it has been a sweet sight every evening this summer.
And it has met the moon.
Which was a bit of magic.
And it reminded me of one of the fairytales I was fond of as a child,
East of the sun, west of the moon.
I don't really remember the story anymore,
it was probably the the usual prince-rescuing-princess-stuff
(which I wouldn't be the least bit interested in nowadays),
but the title stuck.
Too beautiful to be forgotten.
Just as when the sun meets the moon.