Dark times

It is not as bad as it sounds but on the weekend we changed back from daylight savings and gained on hours sleep, yay! But it is a lot darker outside now, it is dark already by 5 pm and it is 2 more months to go before it starts getting brighter outside again. Not to worry, we will have to light candles and use the fireplace to get lighten up the evenings a bit. And after a dark winter it makes me appreciate the summer and the long days a lot more.

This time of year in the gardening diary is for getting things ready for winter, raking leaves and stowing away outdoor furniture. I mowed the lawn for the last time this year, unfortunately I didnt completely finish, our lawnmower doesnt work anymore so I borrowed the neighbours lawnmower till I broke it... But it wasnt the first time it had broken like this, they had temporarily put it back together and it was just a matter of time before it would break again but I still felt bad. I only had a tiny little square left in the middle and the little bit at the front of the house, anyway, it will have to survive till spring when we get the robot lawn mower installed. I cant wait! But because of all the leaves on the lawn I had to use the catcher and I probably moved something like 15-20 metres at a time, then I had to empty it, another 15 metres, stop and empty and so on. Quite annoying but still a lot faster than raking it all into piles and using the wheel barrow.

We have also hung a little bird feeder in the plum tree at the front porch to help the little birds survive winter. A lot of birds travel south to Europe and even Africa but some stay over winter and it is quite nice to sit at the breakfast table and watch them.

We have also, actually not we but Stephen, invested in a pool table and a Playstation 2 with a whole heap of games including guitar hero with 2 guitars, a drum kit, and a microphone. It will all go in the boys room. Now he is looking for a sofa as well to make it a bit more loungy. I think he is planning the first pool competition in 2 weeks time, while I am away on a girls weekend.

Stephen has not only been shopping for the boys room, he has picked up on his swedish studies again. I hope I can support him more from now on and actually speak at least some swedish with him and not always take the easy way out and speak english. Mum and dad are now speaking mainly swedish with him and it works well on the understanding side of the fence, it is a bit more difficult speaking but hopefully this course will help him a bit further.

Heureka - it works

http://www.emmaleaphotography.se/

Now I just need to upload some more photos to it =)

4 days of celebrations =)

It has been a hectic weekend of cleaning the house, making soup, and preparing for 16 people to have lunch. It all went really well I must say!

The celebrations started already on Saturday with my fantastic husband cooking me a 3-course meal with matching wines. And not to forget the breakfast in bed! On Sunday all the rellies were here and it was a lovely afternoon. Tonight mum and dad has been here again to install a new outdoor light that they gave me for my birthday, it looks just like the old one but has a sensor as well. We always forget to turn the light on when we leave home and if we get back when it is dark then it is difficult to get the key in the hole. And because I had meetings all afternoon I didnt get time to go and get cake for afternoon tea at work so I will do that tomorrow instead. And tomorrow night we are having some friends around for birthday cake in the evening. Then it will have to be an end to all the cake eating!

We are waiting for IKEA to get some recliners back in stock again, as we are setting up the library with a couple of them, I think the library will become my favourite place in this house this winter. Sitting in front of the fire place and reading a book and having a cup of tea. That is what I will do right now actually, maybe I'll skip the tea though...

Wednesday again

I cant believe how fast the time goes by, it feels like yesterday I wrote the last update and it is already half a week ago.


Stephen is away overnight, he is going to a "technical exhibition" in Stockholm, or maybe it is called expo... Anyway, lots of companies presenting their technical abilities I guess. Jonas is part of it as the company he is working for is there to show off their stuff.

Tonight I have been preparing for the coming weekend soup lunch that I have decided to host as part of my birthday celebration, and also an opportunity for the rellies to come to beautiful Älmhult and look at our house. So far I think we will be about 12 people, maybe a few more or less depending on the cousins.

I have decided to make a pea soup from dried yellow peas, of course with some pickled pork ;-) And also a goulash soup which is bubbling away in the slow cooker as I type. I might make a vegetable soup as well, I haven't devided 100% yet, but this time of year is root vegetable season and there are a lot of nice veggies in the shop.

Now it is time to go to sleep, and read the new book I just bought, I have to take the opportunity when Stephen is away, he tends to interrupt my reading when he is around, if he is bored and wants attention =)

Ferret

Today has been a long but productive day, the curtains are on their way, a slow cooked meal is finished, I made some soup for lunch, I sewed an apron, went for a walk, took some photos, dropped Stephen off, picked Stephen up in time for a bbq and on the way back we saw a ferret run across the road. The only thing I didnt fit in was a kip =)

Very productive! I should get up early mrore often I think. It was so nice and peaceful to have the whole morning to just let things take its time.

And today was an absolutely wonderful day, fresh autumn air and plenty of sunshine, and when the sun set it was foggy, almost magical to drive on the countryside, according to old Swedish folklore the fairies were dancing.

Saturday morning 6.30 am, footy grand final

Stephen is having some friends over to watch the footy grand final, here in Sweden it starts at 6.30 am and has Swedish commentators. They have already opened their first beer. I was gonna try and sleep in a bit longer but as the bed room is next to the lounge I didnt have too much hope that I would be able to. As it turns out I couldnt get back to sleep after Stephen got up, not because it was noisy though, I really dont know why. And I do like my sleep and weekend mornings in bedbut here I am, waiting for the door bell to ring and the rest of the gang to show up. Simon has been here since last night but there were at least 3 more coming, I dont know if they changed their mind then the alarm rang way too early for a Saturday or they are just aiming to come in half time =)

I have decided to devote the day to fiddle around at home, do some laundry, hang some curtains, sloowcook some pickled pork and just plod around.

Yay!!!

My scarf is done!!! Now back to that darn cardigan that I hope to finish by Christmas....2015...

Fantastic day

Today we had a fantastic day, another day that could be the last nive day before winter and we tried to make to most out of it, having lunch outside for example, and mowing the lawn and getting the garden ready for winter.

Last year the snow came in late October, only a month from now.

I just realised that the weekend soon is over and I still havent finished that scarf...

Tomorrow mum and dad will come during the day, dad is doing some electrical work for us, like putting up little fans in the bathrooms to increase the circulation and adding a few powerpoints and another light in the garage.

And because the autumnal equinox (as google translate told me it is called in English, when day and night have approximately the same length) happened a few days ago, and it is now getting darker in the northern hemisphere I have decided to post some photos of the midnight sun from our honey moon.

Bsy busy busy week

Tuesday night - birthday dinner for a friend
Wednesday night - catching up with my old friends
Thursday night - house warming party at Stephens colleague
Friday night - Relax in the sofa eating nice food and drinking nice wine

This weekend we are going to Malmö for another birthday party, staying over night and then it is back to work on Monday. And I'll be in Warsaw Wed-Fri and Stephen will go to Gothenburg to watch the grand final next weekend.

Then we are taking it easy for a while I hope! I will have time to put the final touch in the kitchen with the curtains and hopefully finish off that Cardigan I am knitting, and my scarf should be finished before the weekend is finished, I am soooo close now, just a few more centimeters!

And in November me and the former Adelaide girls who now live in all different parts of Sweden are planning a get-together in Luleå, where we all studied and one of us lives. It will be a lot of fun to meet them again! We really are spread out all over the country, one in the far south, me in the south, one in Stockholm area and the last one in Luleå.

Busy weekend!

Yesterday was gardening day and today has been indoor doing stuff day. Laundry, vacuum, mopping, cooking, food shopping, knitting and putting up curtains. And we have also finished off the last episode of Entourage, a tv-series that Stephen started watching a while back and I kind of learnt to like it. And I just read on Wikipedia that there will be an Entourage movie! They just have to write the script first...

My other domain is not changed yet, I just checked, have no idea how long it will take but I hope it will be fixed soon. Until then I should probably get back to lightroom and have a look at my photos, if I ever will get it sorted I need to use it a bit more often and get a work flow going I think, I am just not that disciplined...

Tomorrow it is time for the timing belt in the car to be changed, and also for someone to have a look at the rattle, hopefully after that, knock on wood, the little car will be as new again!

Now I will get back to my knitting, I want to get that scarf done so that I can use it soon!

Hoppsan

It is almost 2 months ago since I was here last, not good. But I really havent had the energy to do anything here. I hope times will change and that I will spend more time here during the winter, I also plan to share more photos.

Lately all that has been on my, and my friends minds, is knitting =) Yes, we are a bunch of young girls that have discovered how much fun it is to knit, with some help and encouragement from myself...

I dont really like to come up with excuses but another reason to the lack of blogging is that I am changing my other website/blog to a new domain with my new surname. www.emmaleaphotography.se. It wasnt all that easy to redirect it and that put me off a bit from computer stuff. But now I have taken charge of the situation again and hope to have it sorted soon.

I have also changed both passports and drivers license, the car is about to get serviced, the kitchen is wallpapered, 3 balcony doors changed, the new garage door is ordered, and I just realised that I need to tell Australia that I am now married to the man of my dreams and I have a new passport and a new surname.

So I havent been sitting around doing nothing lately, I have been doing other things.

Cross your fingers that it will change and from now on Hemma hos Emma will come back to life again =)

And drop by the other website sometime, it might take a few days until it has redirected to the new address so if you cant find it this time then come back later =)

on the way back

We have now started driving south again, the furthest north we got was to the town of Andenes on the top of the island of Andöya in north western Norway. This time of the year it never goes dark up there but it wouldnt be the most hospitable place ever in winter. But it did have the best Creme Brulee I've ever had I think. Or at least it shares the no 1 place with one from a very nice french restaurant in Paris. So far the trip has been great but the bed in the caravan is pretty average, we will try to find another mattress to put on top of it to prevent sore backs and aching hips. This is after all our honeymoon and not our first trip after retirement.

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Day 2

We are heading off on day 2 of our honeymoon. 990 to our first planned stop. It is all working well but I think it takes some time to get used to it and create our own routines. I guess by the end of this trip we will be able to just look at each other an nod and we both know what to do :-)

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So many things I want to do

The weather has been great for a few days now which means I need to water a bit in the garden. I really enjoy going for a stroll and checking up on all my plants in the evening while it is still quite light outside and make up plans for the garden (as long as I am covered in either mosquito repellant or clothes!). Unfortunately the list is so long that I dont know where to start. And I should probably involve Stephen as well, he usually has a few good points and ideas, not that he is super interested in the garden but he thinks about it differently (not surrounded by little pink clouds and happy endings) and it would be great to get him a bit interested.

I guess I will just have to take it one step at a time, and make sure every step involves reducing the size of the lawn =) And I want to make sure I think about it long term as well, and not just what seems to be the best thing now. Maybe one day I would like to have a glass house for example. But on the top of the priority list is a proper veggie patch, I just have to find the best spot for it!

Kitchen cleaned

One step closer to departure, I have cleaned up the kitchen while waiting for the laundry to finish. I dont think it has hit me yet that we are going to be away for almost 3 weeks and need to kind of prepare the house for it. I will ask the neighbours to keep an eye on the garden for me and Jonas and mum and dad will come around as well to check up on things.

If we forget to bring things we can always buy it but I really dont want to forget bringing the bins out or leaving wet stuff in the laundry...

I will make sure I bring camera and batteries and memory cards as well =) And I think I will challenge myself not to take 15 photos of the same thing, to save on the editing part afterwards. I dont want to spend 2 months going through 3 weeks worth of holiday snaps.

That was the end of the spin cycle, time to go hang some laundry and then bed!

Evening person

I never thought I was neither morning nor evening person, I am not sure if I am using Swenglish anymore so to clarify what I mean is that I am not waking up easily in the mornings like a morning person nor did I think that I was awake late at night like an evening person would be. But I am getting more and more convinced that I am an evening person. I have started bringing out stuff that is coming with us on the caravan trip and have now filled the little kitchen table with things that could be handy such as cooking utensils, oil, salt and pepper. And I also remembered that I was gonna show some more photos of the caravan so here they are, this are the ones the seller put in the ad.

Tomorrow I am going to get the gas pipes tested to make sure it is safe to run it on gas. It would be very annoying if there was a leakage somewhere and it was unsafe to use it...







And this little cutie I found in another ad today, I am not going to buy it but I would love to buy something like it and upholster it and have it in the library, hopefully it is comfortable enough to snuggle up in and read a book and drink tea while having a fire in the fireplace. But it would have to be the other way around with the back rest on the other side I think, otherwise it wouldnt suit next to the door out to the decking. Or maybe it would, at least by the looks of this picture. The first step is to convince Stephen to buy this, but I guess he is getting a pool table... And he did go and spend an awful lot of money in France so it shouldnt be a problem I think.

Jamming

Tonight both me and Stephen have been jamming, I did gooseberry and vanilla jam and he was jamming along with the live big four concert that they are showing on tv right now.

Otherwise the whole weekend has been around the house and the caravan, we have fixed the indicator and made sure the fridge works. The lawn has been mowed, it looked more like a meadow than a lawn this morning due to a suspected lawn mower break down but Stephen fixed it and now it works again, he cleaned the filter and the spark plug and then it was happy again.

This week Stephen is in Italy and I will have to make sure we are ready for take off on Friday lunch time. I really look forward to go on our honeymoon! I dont really know what to do with flowers and the garden though but I am sure it will work out. I have everything in pots, maybe I can drop them off at mum and dads on the way or something.

Anyway, time to get back to some photos, I promised my new upholsteryfriends that I would share them.

Almost done

I have safely arrived back to Älmhult again with both a chair and a stool freshly upholstered, pictures are getting loaded to Lightroom as I write, will come on the blog when they are done. I still have a ribbon thingy to fasten on the chair and I will do that this weekend. If I leave it longer it will never get done. And I will continue to clean up among my photos, delete all blurry and ugly photos. I HAVE to delete some photos, 193 gig is way way way tooo much. Riddiculous really, when I think about it. Maybe I dont have to have all photos in full resolution either, I am not gonna print them on A1 or use them for a feature wall in the lounge room...

Now back to work, I want to finish the chair!

ta-da!!!

Almost done...

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eating weeds...

Tomorrow I head 3hrs north to to my first and very longed for upholstery course, finally. I have been looking forward to this soo much and I cant wait to learn. I wonder how difficult it is and if I will learn any tricks. Below are 2 before photos, I look forward to show the after ones.


I also harvested from the garden yesterday for dinner, a big bowl of leaves =) Silverbeet, snow peas, some nettles and an edible weed that I dont know the name of but we have the whole garden full of it! So why not eat it instead!