A rush and a push...

I cannot believe its only 9 days until Christmas 2013!  Where has the time gone?!
I see my last post was on the 20th October, and for those of you actually checking in here, I apologise for the silence.  It's been one hell of a autumn.  I don't know how working mums with more than 1 child do it.  Again I salute you!
So what has been happening…
Well there has been work.  Oh how I love you but you certainly have made me sweat the last while.  Thanks be to Jesus, it's coming to an end on Friday and time for a little festive break.

Then there has been husby who has had shingles, and a bad case of it.  Since Tilly hasn't had chickenpox we were waiting with baited breath for her to get it.  But luckily she missed it.  Although I suppose there is never a convenient time to get them.  So poor husby was not at his best, and me being the unsympathetic type with illness, probably wasn't a model wife.  And little lady missed hanging out with her pappa :(

Then there was and is, the joy of the birth of my very first orchid.  This took loads of my time.  I stared at it lovingly at every chance.  Because, I cannot believe that it exists and at this very moment has 13 flowers on it - yes you read right THIRTEEN!  This is my biggest flora achievement, so I am super proud.

Last weekend was my fantastic mommy's 60th birthday, so I flew over for a quick surprise visit.  And boy was she.  It was great craic.  We had a brilliant time out for dinner and hanging out like a family.  It was a shame for her not to see her little lady, but on the plus side, I got some total R&R, which I needed.

After a touch-and-go week with stomach flu and fever, Tilly's birthday approached quick and fast.  Thankfully all went well, and on the 14th December, we celebrated the best 4 years of our lives!  She was super excited all week.  This year she had her first real party, where she chose who to invite and what she wanted to do etc.  Her big request was that no parents be there on the day, but that didn't go so well, since all the kids wanted their moms to stay.  Half way through she asked me to tell them to go….!  So another ice-cream was given to distract her, and she forgot about it!

There was cake, popcorn and ice-cream - at her request.  A disco, a treasure hunt and lots of gift opening.   This time of year is very 'full' for her, because there is so much gift giving, that it's easy for her to lose sight of all of them.  But she has done well.  Her favourite is a cupcake game she got from Granny and Pops, which she has us playing constantly.  Thank you to all her friends (and the mamas) for the gifts!  She is already counting down until her 5th!!!

Yesterday we added just a touch more festive feeling into our home and decorated our Christmas tree.  This was also the first year we all really got into it, since we are in our new big house!  Tilly chose the tree, decorated most of it, with my direction (but of course) and then placed little boxes with her small toys under for her friends.  Husby must have said 'what a great tree' easily 30 times! A celebratory cocktail was drunk to make a sweet end to a full weekend.
I heart Christmas!

5 years down, a lifetime to go...

So me and husby have been married 5 years already!  Time flies when you having fun.  Although on the other hand it feels like eternity since that day!  To celebrate we sent the kid packing and had a night on the town.  Well more like a night in one restaurant, eating ourselves into a coma.
Restaurant Jonas is where we headed this year.  A man striving for a star.  And to be honest he deserves one.  It was excellent.  Well the food was definitely!  The decor was good but not my style - a little too Scandinavian for me.  And the service could have been a bit more personal.  We had the tasting menu of 6 courses with pairing wines.  In Sweden the wine costs exactly the same as the food, which is just plain BS.  Especially since you get the teeniest amount in the glass.  Now this is not a new experience as you know, since I have blabbed about it before. But this was taking the piss.  I'm talking a the same amount as when you taste wine before they pour.  120kr a glass too!  Nevertheless it was an amazing dinner, and although it was meant to be 6 courses, we got an loads of extra small little in-betweeners which made the night.

Shot of green pea gel in bacon water.
Caper in meringue with cured ham.
Cauliflower cream, with artichoke and truffle.
Roasted bread with pine tree butter.
Beetroot done 4 ways.
King crap in carrot cream.
Turbot with leeks and oxtail sauce.
Wild mushrooms
Wild duck with berries.
Yogurt, honey and oats deconstructed.
Lemon sorbet and brioche.
Apple mouse, candied apples and apple sorbet.
Petit fours.
Espresso.

Always wonderful going out with my man and chatting and laughing like the old days!  So far its been a fabulous 5 years and I just look forward to more good times and more fab dinners with the man I love.

x

My favourite movies...part 1

Lately we have been watching a lot of movies at home.  Some of them good, some of them brilliant.  Husby and I love to go through all our favourites and here are some of mine.
 (I noticed that many of mine aren't the most uplifting!)


Once were warriors - 1994.  I remember wanting to hit the TV and needed to call my mom directly after watching.  And this trailer is far from what the movie is really like.

Ladybird, ladybird - 1994.  The movie that made me cry more than any other.

The Ice storm - 1997.  Could watch this one over and over.  Where I fell in love with Elijah Woods.

Falling Down - 1993.  How I feel all the time.

Requiem for a dream - 2000.  Great acting and a makes you feel very uncomfortable.

The talented Mr. Ripley - 1999.  Fell in love with Naples and Jude Law.

Husbands and wives - 1992.  Best Woody Allen movie for me.

The breakfast club - 1985.  Just one of the best movies of the 80's.

Donny Darko - 2003.  Best soundtrack ever.

Into the wild - 2007.  Amazing story and brilliantly made.

Disco Pigs - 2001.  Most romantic movie - in a dark way.

The Hunt - 2012.  Another brilliant Danish movie.

Dead man's shoes - 2004.  Uncomfortable but brilliant.

Grosse point blank - 2007.  John Cusack!

The Lost boys - 1987.  The only vampire movie I'll ever watch.

Enduring love - 1997.  Creepy.

Breaking the waves - 1996.  So romantic.

Half Nelson - 2006.  Ryan Gosling.....

Election - 1999.  Can't go wrong with awkward Matthew Broderick.

Bridges over Madison county - 1995.  Another heart wrencher.

Back to life, back to reality...

It feels like a million years ago since we were in Crete.  Today was officially when things went back to normal after 8 weeks of summer fun.   Husby went back to school, Tilly started a new class at dagis for the 'big' kids and I was giving a training at work.  It was like summer never happened!

So I thought I'd add some pictures to relive the summer and try and hold onto them again, while we all 'gently' get back into normal life.

Now I can start to psych myself up for the winter!

Our new home...

Finally after many years of 'discussions' husby and I have bought our first home.  Granted it is not the small house with the garden, which I've dreamt about like forever, but it is our home where we will grow old and be together.  Because those house discussions were starting to get in the way, if you know what I mean.

So a month ago we moved into our 110m2 apartment in our beloved Blackeberg.  (not the best pic)

We love it here and since Mikael went to high school here, and has lived here for 13 years, it felt right.  Tilly doesn't have to move dagis and we can still get the best burger in town at our local 'grill'.

On the plus side this apartment

A lesson to learn...

It's been awhile since I wrote anything, well because we've been on holiday, we've moved and we've been working.  So it's been mental.  Tonight was the first night I got to relax and look at some stuff on the interweb, and I found this quote from a woman photographed by Humans of New York.

“When I was younger, I thought listening was just about learning the contents of someone’s mind. I’d always try to finish their thoughts, just to show them that I knew what they were thinking. As I got older, I learned to listen better. I realized that by trying to anticipate their mind, I was ignoring their heart.”


What a great lesson.  I'm so guilty of this, and always thought that I was connecting with people but I guess I have some learning to do....

Age and wisdom!

3 is the magic number...

OMG the last few weeks have been mental!  Between the constant bank holidays for May and June, (which in Sweden also means a half day the day before the bank holiday), the overload at work before the summer, planning our move in less than a month, a vacation in Greece in between that, and the new developments and mood swings of our little lady, I think I might be closer to to loosing it than ever before.

At the start of 3 I thought it was amazing

Summer Time...

After a very long Swedish winter and a snail paced spring, Summer finally has arrived.
Sweden is a funny place, totally schizophrenic really.  During the winter everyone is dressed in thick dark clothes and barely makes eye contact, let alone conversation.  It's dark longer than it's light and generally its pretty depressing.  But in the spring and the summer it's like another place completely.   Light for 20 hours a day, sunny and hot (above 20 degrees most days).  People are friendly, chatty, spontaneous and helpful. The city is amazing with all the water around and the fact that you don't need too many clothes and can just be around outside having picnics and going for walks makes a huge difference to my general well being anyway.

So here's a little journey through our spring and summer so far....

Looking forward to many more days like these until at least October.  

I hope everyone is having a great summer so far.....x

PS - this post is dedicated to my friend Leisha who actually reads this blog and told me to get posting :)

The Party...

Last week Tilly was at home with scarlet fever but as always was as bright as a button!  Normally being trapped indoors ends up in too many hours in front of the TV or computer, so I had to come up with something fun to do.  So the night before I reminded her that it was Teddy's birthday the next day and that we had to have a party for him.  Teddy was turning 5.

What a great day we had.  We baked him a strawberry cream cake - which Tilly decorated with much care.

We wrapped his gifts and made him a card, and blew up balloons and set the table very nicely for him.

 We decided we needed a few more guests so called her grandma down the road to see if they felt up for a party.  Luckily they did and so we sang to him in both Swedish and English and enjoyed opening his presents and eating cake.

She had so much fun and couldn't wait to tell pappa all about it when he came home.  This was one of those days I had been waiting for when becoming a mother.  Full of fantasy and silliness but with a heap of memories.

Soon we will all be mad...

In 1995 I saw the movie Strange Days and it totally freaked me out.  It predicted some crazy techno things about the future (1999 to be exact) which seemed very possible.  And now its just a thing of the past.  Then there was Minority Report  which was 10 years ago and I see that we are almost there.  Was it less than 4 years ago we didn't have smart phones?  Time is moving so fast.
So when I went to this PR and Digital marketing presentation for work a few days ago, I realised that we are pretty much doomed and as early as the end of this year!
It's the  Google Glasses.  Holy crap right.  You saw that?! Constant information in your eyeball from the moment you wake up.  Informing you on the weather (look out the window and find out the fecking weather!)  Giving you your agenda for the day.  Who you going to meet, when and where.  No not because you remember it, but because it flashes in front of your face while you brushing your teeth. Every time you look in the direction of some registered place, it beams up info about it, or ask if you want to check in.  Directions get mapped out in your vision like GPS when you need to get somewhere.  Blip, blip, blip constantly in your head.  What happened to the excitement of getting lost and having to talk to a stranger to ask directions.  Or discover a new place because you took the wrong street.  Bump into a friend and have a coffee instead of planning and scheduling every waking moment.
Were these glasses (oh now contacts are being considered because the glasses are so goddam ugly)- were these glasses developed because too many people were getting knocked over or walking into poles because they were constantly looking down at their phones?  Or is it that we want to see if its possible to regress our brains to that of apes.

I'm afraid.  I'm grossed out.  I'm shocked.  I'm worried.  What about Tilly?  Will this just be the way it is?  Will she not know how to communicate, or read body language or talk to people or think for herself?
I used to think those guys at Google were impressive for developing things like Google Earth but now I'm wondering if they have little horns and pointy tails.

Protect yourselves.  Teach your kids to think, question, read, discuss, discover, search.  Get them to do it with actual people too and make some rules about how much time you are online when your kids are awake.
Save Us!

Turkey in Easter...

Most years husby and I have always gone away on a city break for Easter.  But since Tilly came we have spent it at home with family and lots of eggs.  But this year husby got his travel bug on and booked us a trip to Istanbul.  And when I say us I mean only the 2 of us!  Since he booked the tickets 6 months ago, I have been dealing with a lot of feelings about leaving Tilly for 4 whole nights, but finally about 2 hours before we left, I embraced the opportunity for us to see a beautiful city together and have some US time.  

The city is amazing.  But that will be in the next post.  Now for some talk about the food.  

As you can see it was tremendous!  

Mediterranean food is the best.  And Turkish food is all that with a little spice.

From the doner kebabs, to the dolmades, to the aubergine to the fish.  Its all amazing.

We tried street food and restaurant food, and it was all good.  Fresh, organic, home cooked, loved and delicious.

Here are our tips:

1.  Sarnic -  a traditional place set in an old water cistern.  Sometimes seemed touristy but was lovely all the same - dinner was meze and lamb chops of course.

2.  Mikla - equivalent of a Michelin star place (but they don't give out stars in Turkey) which is on the top of a hotel Marmara Pera.  Amazing setting.  Chef is half Swedish! 

3.  Balikci Sabahattin - amazing fish restaurant.  You must book and don't listen when they tell you starters will be offered at the table.  That's only meze and not hot starters.  I missed my calamari.....

Some more tips and some more info on the flavours of Istanbul.

My advice is to try everything.  The surroundings, sights, smells all add to a once in a lifetime experience.  

My favourite meal however were the 2 on the plane.  We got upgraded to business class on the way there (i know!!) but we didn't get to have the menu option as husby had ordered a 'special meal' for us, which they just brought.  That would have been nice as an economy passenger but not this time.
 It was nice but I had to add a lot of salt.  Then on the way home when we were regular passengers they brought another menu which sounded lovely but wondered about our 'special meal'.  So I read a little in the in flight magazine and saw that special meals were for special religious or dietary needs and had to be ordered when booking the flight.  So when we received our 'special meal' again, I added a lot of salt.  I was so curios as to what special need husby had chosen for us, and after looking through our booking page I saw he chose BLAND meal.  Hello, bland?  WTF.  Why would anyone order bland and is that really an option.  Anyway guess who's booking our next flight!

Bon Appetito!

Dress you up in my world...

So when I was a little girl there was nothing more I liked than to dress up and pretend I was big.  It was my secret wish to be big and a mommy and do all the mommy, big lady kind of stuff.  I wore my mothers beads and shoes and specifically remember a 5th birthday party of my very rich friend Kathy Summerly (who had a basin in her room!) where we actually had to dress up like big ladies.  What a day!
Well Tilly is into dressing up too, but she hasn't yet decided what her secret wish or look is.  It goes from princess, to fairy, to big lady mamma, to brooch girl, to Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony and back to princess/fairy/mamma.  But she has such a fun time and takes it very seriously, spins around and says in Swedish (naturally) - see how lovely I am!  (I'll have to work on her modesty).

Some days this all happens to the soundtrack of The Cure , which is maybe the best part of it all.  She gives it loads and I wish I could upload her dance moves but it don't work for me....:( Nevertheless I can't wait to see what years 4 and onwards offer and if we get to Dress up like Madonna or whoever is the like in 6 years time.  Mamma has lots of practice Tilly, so you're good.

Don't forget to dress up and dance around yourselves until the next time xx

Snow...

Jaysus it's been ages since I have updated this and to those of you who actually read it - sorry about the silence!  It has been a mad busy few weeks at work and it isn't looking like slowing down until March at least.  So this might be the last one for a few more weeks!
So what's been happening...?
Well it's mainly been snowing here, which is lovely around Christmas when it's all about the warm and fuzzy.  But it just gets too much when the temperature drops to minus 18 and you have to pull your child on a sled each day to dagis without having a heart attack along the way!

You spend 20 minutes trying to make yourself pretty each morning, which is swiftly followed by another 20 struggling to put on 6 layers of winter clothes on a 3 year old.  By this time you have said your special calming mantra at least 10 times and tried to smile and not have a tantrum like the one your 3 year old is having.
Then you go down 5 flights of stairs to discover you forgot your phone, climb up the 5 flights again and then start the long pull through the 20 centimetre snow for almost a  kilometre!  By this time the sweat is pouring off under the Eskimo jacket you are wearing and all the pretty make up is gone.
 You eventually get inside and have to take off your 3 year olds 6 layers of clothes surrounded by a bunch of other parents who are all throwing each other false smiles, sweetly singing things like 'come on then Elsie, lets get your shoes off' while they know their subway is almost just about to come.
Big kisses and love are exchanged thankfully and you leave your 3 year old happily playing, while you wonder if taking your eskimo jacket off and walking in your bra to the subway would be considered weird, cos you about to drop dead from the heat!
By the time you get on the crowded subway and have to sit next to someone talking on their mobile at full volume, while they cough into your face, you can't stop thinking about the fact that it is only the beginning of February and there is still 3 more months of this and holy crap why do you have your 3 year old's gloves in your pocket? and now you have to get off at the next station and get back to dagis as quick as possible so that you make it into the office for that 9am meeting with the CEO about why they can't live without you at the company! And what it's only Monday..................................?€%&*

Now for some wine to unwind until Monday when it all starts again.
Happy weekend lovelies x