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Jan 6, 2012

Photo 366 challenge – days 2-5/366

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Hmm, of course, I had forgotten that 2012 is a leap year, so there are in fact 366 days this year… And then I see from others’ tweets that there is actually a site called 365 Project. So, now the question is whether I want also to upload the photos there. On the one hand, there is the likelihood that I will, in fact, frequently, forget to upload the photos there as well as here (especially with the imminent arrival of gyermek in the next few weeks); but on the other, it’s a great way to see the photos of others and also to interact (and isn’t that what I said was what I loved about the internet?)…

I’ll ponder it a little longer, I think.

In the meanwhile, here are my photos from the past few days.

Day 2:

Photo © English Mamma

Not for this year, unfortunately, as Little O is still too little and as gyermek will also be too small for us to undertake a five-hour car journey up north, but the plan is definitely to resume the annual family ski trip in 2013. Woo hoo!

Day 3:

Photo © English Mamma

Little O’s artistic skills are starting to bloom. Today was a quiet day as I was hit by a 24-hour stomach bug and so he and I just lazed around indoors after he finished at pre-school.

Day 4:

Photo © English Mamma

A new purchase – wondering if organising stationery is part of the nesting process?

Day 5:

Photo © English Mamma

So, it has finally snowed properly here in Stockholm (although today is warmer, with no snow, and so most of it has now melted away). We headed to the playground with Little O and met up with friends so the toddlers could play together.

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Mar 20, 2011

Silent Sunday – skis

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20110319-082952.jpg

Silent Sunday

 

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Jan 3, 2011

2010 review

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To celebrate the new year, I thought I’d take a quick look back at 2010, month by month.

January: I got itchy feet. Just knowing that I only had a couple of months left in which I could travel but not really enough time to do so, made me want to get the hell out of Sweden and go abroad. I also discovered the joy of the Mother-to-be treatment at Centralbadet (bliss!) and the perils of eating spicy Thai curry when five months pregnant.

February: We ordered our pram. I started to walk like John Wayne. My midwife became convinced that my job was going to cause me stress – little did she know that the stressful moments are what make my job. And I discovered just how hard it was to understand the in and outs of the parental benefit system here in Sweden.

March: I found out that yoga, Baby O and I did not a good combination make. I tried everything to combat the dreaded stretch marks. I lost sight of my feet. The T Family went skiing, and I slunk around the resort feeling sorry for myself at not being able to join in. I listed ten things that people do not tell you before you become pregnant. I discarded Rennies in favour of Gaviscon in an attempt to stop the heartburn and acid reflux.

April: I read as many books as I could find to prepare myself for every eventuality. Baby O allegedly reached the size of a watermelon. I started packing my hospital bag (little knowing that it would not be used). I stopped working. My inner control freak came to the fore. I had a pregnancy photo session at home.

May: I celebrated the purchase of a new camera lens by setting up a photo blog. I decided that the imminent arrival of Baby O would not give me enough to do, so I signed up for the Day Zero Project. I tried different tactics to encourage Baby O into the world, including city walking and hill walking. And then, on 11 May, Baby O was born!

June: I struggled with breastfeeding. I heard about the Wonder Weeks. We travelled to England and I found blogging increasingly difficult to fit into the day.

July: I struggled further with breastfeeding and started Baby O on formula once a day. I fell in love with the Baby Björn carrier. And my blogging became even less frequent.

August: Baby O was subjected to his three-month injections. We encountered another Wonder Week. And I tried to win new friends at my Swedish mothers’ group.

September: I was such a bad blogger that I did not even log one post during the month of September…

October: We booked our flights to Thailand.

November: Baby O mastered “commando rolling”. And I promised to try harder to blog…

December: Hmmm, well, that was one promise out of the window, as in December I again failed to blog. However, I do have a batch of excuses to hand: O started “commando creeping”, then got sick, then started teething, then got sick again, then made me sick, then we went to England and he made my mum and grandmother sick, then a first tooth popped through and then we came home!

So, 2010 was a momentous year – the year that we went from being a couple to a little family. It is certainly a year that we will never forget, with ups and downs and ups again and full of happiness.

Happy 2011!

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May 2, 2010

Day Zero

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Photo by Beth77 (on flickr)

No, not a post about reaching my estimated due date without the arrival of gyermek… Instead, this is about the Day Zero Project, where you set yourself 101 tasks to complete in 1001 days.

Unfortunately, pregnancy brain really seems to have taken hold and I wrote this post with the intention that I could complete another task, that of writing a blog post every day for a week. However, when I returned to the list I found that that wasn’t actually one of the tasks that I had set myself. It does mean that I am 25% of the way towards task no. 13 (to blog every day for a month), although I would be incredibly ambitious to believe that I could complete this run, given that today is the due date and if gyermek doesn’t make an appearance in the next 14 days, I will be induced. Oh well, I’ve still got more than 950 days to go… 

Day Zero tasks

  1. Eat at 10 new restaurants – already three new restaurants down (mainly because we’re getting out and about as much as we can in these last few days before gyermek arrives).
  2. Read 10 non-fiction books – two down, eight more to go!
  3. Finish off the nursery (part 1) – this will be complete once the cot arrives (any day now.
  4. Learn some new knitting stitches – learned how to do extended moss stitch this week; not quite sure when I’ll allow myself to call this task completed – how many is “some” after all?!
  5. Write a letter to myself to open in 10 years
  6. Ice skate on a lake
  7. Buy something from Etsy
  8. Attend a film festival
  9. See the Northern Lights
  10. See 10 classic movies I’ve never seen
  11. Go ice skating
  12. Host a tea party
  13. Participate in NaBloPoMo
  14. Learn how to play poker
  15. Make snow angels
  16. Don’t complain about anything for a week
  17. Take a photography class
  18. Make my own bread
  19. Photograph a landscape from the same location, capturing all four seasons
  20. Bury a time capsule
  21. Visit 5 parks or public gardens
  22. Take more photos
  23. Host a board game night
  24. Visit Japan
  25. Visit Australia
  26. Learn Swedish
  27. Make a font out of my handwriting
  28. Learn CPR
  29. Bake bread
  30. Improve my posture
  31. Visit 5 new museums
  32. Read War & Peace
  33. Learn how to play chess
  34. Blog at least once a week
  35. Learn more about wine
  36. Wear false eyelashes
  37. Floss at least once a week
  38. Inspire someone else to make their own 101 in 1001 list
  39. Visit the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi
  40. Wear nothing black for a whole week
  41. Visit the Eden Project
  42. Start a new family tradition
  43. Get rid of 101 things I don´t need or want
  44. Take a photo of 26 things, one for each letter of the alphabet and post on my blog
  45. Drink more water
  46. Tie notes to five balloons and let them free
  47. Go to the library, close my eyes and pick a random book that I have to read
  48. Get a cleaner
  49. Sell something on Etsy
  50. Send someone flowers, just because
  51. Take 1001 photographs
  52. Attend wine tasting
  53. Buy cakes from Betty’s
  54. Walk the York wall
  55. Read 100 books from 1001 books to read before you die list
  56. Lose the baby weight that I have put on
  57. Finish knitting gyermek’s blanket
  58. Finish putting our wedding photos into the album
  59. Learn how to use the DSLR camera properly
  60. Buy some artwork/photos for the walls
  61. Make use of Spotify more often
  62. Teach myself the basics of calligraphy
  63. Call my personal trainer and restart training
  64. Remember birthdays
  65. End the 1001 days with the same plants I started with
  66. Keep my desk at home tidy
  67. Buy a piece of secondhand furniture and renovate it
  68. Finish off the nursery (part 2)
  69. Learn CSS and update blog layout
  70. Visit Patagonia
  71. Travel somewhere by steam train
  72. Revisit the British Museum
  73. See a Formula One race live
  74. Take a trip to see the Norwegian fjords
  75. Buy a summer house
  76. Read five books that have won the Booker prize
  77. Take that large pile of clothes and shoes to the charity shop
  78. Have a difficult conversation instead of deflecting and avoiding when it arises
  79. Make eye contact and smile with each person I encounter for a day instead of looking away
  80. Organise wardrobe and give what I don’t want to charity
  81. Learn to ski properly
  82. Put away 101kr for each completed task – the total to be spent shopping at the end of my 1001 days
  83. Run Tjejmilen in Stockholm
  84. Comment on others’ blogs more
  85. Learn a new word in Swedish every day for 4 weeks
  86. See an opera here in Stockholm
  87. Revisit Budapest, taking the little one with us
  88. Drink champagne for breakfast
  89. See the Changing of the Guard in London
  90. Visit St Paul’s Cathedral
  91. Have a meal at The Fat Duck
  92. Have a meal at Noma in Copenhagen
  93. Have a meal at Mattias Dahlgren
  94. Start a photo blog – another challenge completed (English Mamma’s photos)
  95. Have a meal at Frantzen/Lindeberg
  96. Visit the Victoria & Albert Museum
  97. Learn how to use Photoshop properly
  98. Go mushroom picking
  99. Write birth plan – tick!
  100. Finish packing hospital bag – tick!
  101. Finish adding 101 tasks to this list! – tick!

Why not have a go too and let me know how you get on. I’ll be posting on my progress from time to time (4% done so far) up until my deadline of 2 January 2013.

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Mar 20, 2010

Winter wonderland

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Photo by English Mamma

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Jan 16, 2010

Itchy feet

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Budapest Castle

No, not literally but certainly metaphorically. While out for drinks during the week*, a friend and I were discussing Budapest and what a fantastic city it is, and I realised that I just want to get back there, and very soon. Aaah-haa, I thought, Easter is on the way. What better way to spend Easter than relaxing at the baths, eating gulasch and photographing one of my favourite cities?

Hmm, turns out that it won’t work out quite as easily as I had hoped. Work has been hectic this week, gearing up for financial year-end and so will only get worse over the next five weeks. This rules out travel for the rest of January and the vast majority of February. I’ve booked a surprise hotel getaway (just outside Stockholm) for Husband’s birthday, but that will be the extent of our February travels.

In mid-March, we have a skiing trip planned to Sälen, about 400km north west of Stockholm. Well, the second family skiing trip is booked, with the two of us, Husband’s parents, Husband’s brother and Husband’s nephew. However, neither Husband nor I will be skiing this year; me for obvious reasons, and Husband because he snapped his Achilles tendon in early December (ouch!) and is just learning to get around without the crutches (and proving an extra challenge to negotiate all this snow and ice on the streets of Stockholm).

That leaves April and Easter. However, by the time Easter rolls around, I will be in week 35/36, which makes things a little more challenging to fly down to Budapest. I know this is about the last week that I will probably be allowed to fly but it seems that this time it will be Husband holding me back. “We’ll see…” is his reponse every time I mention it.

And now that it looks unlikely that we’ll be leaving Sweden until after little gyermek is born, all I can think about is travelling, visiting friends in other countries, basically just getting out of this country for a while…

* We had drinks at Monk’s Cafe, where they serve an alcohol-free wheat beer (with added folic acid, no less), which was absolutely delicious. I am sold…

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