Linnea 'Ea' quilts...

Happy New Year everyone, great and small! Do you feel any different at all? Ah, "Death cab for cutie" says it all in their song "New Year". We here at home will be spending this last day of the year, as well as the first of the new, by sitting in the sofa/lying on the bed and resting. Micke's fever is an on/off thing, and he's coughing and nose dripping so much he's having trouble sleeping. Me, I'm mostly just tired. Major tired. Anyway, enjoy the fireworks you see tonight. We here will be gazing through the window and see half of what Turku city is shooting up into the sky. The other half will not show, since the home for the elderly across the street will block that out.

Oh dear, Micke apparently caught the flu someone was spreading around like crazy on the train back from Ostrobothnia. (read: someone was coughing ALL the time on the train in our compartment) Now he's got a such a sore throat I've told him not to speak. It's painful to hear him say even so little as " it hurts ". Awful. And on top of that, he's got a fever. He became symptomatic yesterday noon. And this morning, I started to feel awful too. I got up at 08:30, had to cancel my only morning-appointment, wrote an email to people saying "we might have to skip the New Year get-together at our place" and went back to bed. And slept until 15:00. While I slept, I dreamt a somewhat crazy dream about: My Mom celebrating her 70th birthday. In Sweden, at one of my aunt's places. Me coloring my hair, because Mom said I had too. I did it while being very pregnant, which meant it was a chore. While doing this, Micke came along and also wanted his ha...

... of which one is New Year. But that's a later blog post. Our Christmas was okay. Much more a 'real holiday' that last time we were in Ostrobothnia for Christmas. This time, instead of driving around in the car visiting various people, we got to spend quite a lot of time at Micke's mother's apartment. I actually managed to forget being stressed out over things. Some of the time. Most of the time. We visited relatives, and Micke's friend Joonas' family. I borrowed the car and drove to Kronoby to visit Sally and her family. Joonas cooked spicy meatballs when we visited, and even though he had totally forgot about my allergies it was okay. We played some games on their christmas present " Kinect " for Xbox. That was amusing, and what made it really funny was that the fact that the guys sweated like pigs when playing. It's a VERY athletic game console. It makes you exercise. A lot. While the guys were browsing through the Kinect-games on Xbox...

... even though I shouldn't. Because people on the paleo-diet don't eat bread, because wheat flour hadn't been "invented" back in  10 000 BC.... But, non the less, I will try to entice you with my magnificent (hah!) bread baking pictures. Behold! The foccacia! ... insert appropriate music here... Dough on tray. Wait for it... Fermentation done, thank you Saccharomyces cerevisiae ! Olives! Pirkka eco-olives :)  Plop plop plop! eco-Olive oil! Sea salt and dried rosemary! 200 degrees Celsius for 40-45 min! Saved from the fiery flames of the oven! Nom!

Last year, as well as the year before that, I baked truffle chocolate for Christmas. Mostly, because it was chocolate and candy and heck-it's-Christmas-can't-we-have-at-least-something-that's-not-healthy-to-eat. Both times, the whole kitchen was a MESS afterwards, and the whole 'event' took maybe 4 hours. Needless to say, I soooo did not wan't to see the kitchen looking like this again . And it's AMAZING how much just a simple pastry bag will help when doing this, instead of following the recipe and using two spoons (or hand and spoon like last year). Why (oh WHY?!) didn't Pirkka put that in their truffle recipe??? Yup, I'm also a Pirkka card user and a Pirkka-magazine reader. (For those of you who aren't, Pirkka is the 'loyal' customer club of one of Finland's biggest food market boutiques. Pirkka belongs to Kesko. The others are S-bonus that belongs to the S-group, and Ykkösbonus which belongs to Suomen Lähikauppa Oy). But, s...

I've read, that no one is happy when they check how much their weight is. People who are over-weight want to get a little lighter, and people who're under-weight want to get a little heavier. Me, I just want (and need!) new clothes, because by this rate my whole wardrobe will look like I permanently borrow my elder mommy-type sister's clothes. And I don't even have a sister. My jeans look like hillbilly-jeans, my shirts sag, my skirts hang waaaay down my hips, and the only things that are kinda okay are the T-skirts. Except, most of them are so old / used / ratty, not to mention "H & M quality", that I'll be needing new ones fast. Anyway, let's look at some pictures :) This is our IKEA-scale. To make using it more enjoyable, I've written "I like YOU anyway" on it. We have a pep-talk scale. Micke's mom copied the idea. Now she has a pep-talk scale too. These are my feet. There's many like them, but these are m...

Dear Santa, Even though my dear mother was forced to "kill you" when I was still very young (I was 8 years old, and had Santa-trauma/depression every December) , I still hope that it's okay to write to you. You see, I think Christmas has become a bit like list-mania, and I need to get on the wagon. Like I did last year . Last Christmas, I wished for 6 things . Of them, I got one: the new frying pan I wanted and we so desperately needed. I also got this amazing filé knife, which I so love my Mikael for. The rest, I've bought during the year, so you're forgiven. And the chocolate I made myself, so that's okay too. But, this year I'll be monitoring your behavior again, so here is my list for 2010: I want my Micke to stop being a nicotine addict, and be free of it once and for all. This is not a selfish wish, because I want him to stop being so frustrated all the time. He's so stressed out, mostly because of his work, so please please please t...

... or then making a LOT of them. To do lists. Shopping lists. Wish lists. Christmas-cards-to-be-sent lists. It's a bit like list-mania. I at least have been using the shopping/to do list application on our Ipod like crazy.  It's nice not to have to have a thousands post-its in you calendar. Easier to edit on-the-go too. Anyway, I thought I should maybe also write a wish list. Even though I know that no one will adhere to it.

The -huge- Strömsö-dream catcher. During one summer while visiting Micke's family up in Ostrobothnia, I managed to scavenge a part of a spruce tree root on the Fäboda beach. The (original) plan was for it to become the skeleton of a dream catcher. Like the huge one they did in the Strömsö TV-program , which looked like this (picture on the right). However, I didn't get any inspiration to create it that summer, and so the whole project kinda went on hiatus... until now. We don't have many Christmas decos, mainly because when we moved in together Micke didn't have any, and the ones I had were hand-me-downs from my Mom and Dad. Only thing we've actually bought ourselves, which was last year, was an electrical advent candelabra (swe. adventsljusstake). One that was on sale after New Year came and went. Yeah, we're cheapos. But hey, we're students, so I guess it's okay. Anyhow, one thing I really would have liked us to have last Christmas, was a wrea...