Decorating the flat – Part 2

We are now back home, and I thought that I could show you some little details from our flat. It’s all about the small things 😉

We bought this map three years ago when Phill visited me in Sweden for the first time. It is a copy of “Carta Marina”, one of the first accurate maps of Scandinavia. We both love it and it has had an important place in each place we have lived in since then. The only difference this time is that we have framed it in a large basic black frame from IKEA (there is a lot of stuff from IKEA in our home). The map is actually quite large (around 1m*1.25 m maybe? ) so it fills a substantial part of one of our living room walls.

This beautiful little painting hangs on another wall in the living room. This painting was painted by Phills mum and given to him for his birthday, so it is very important for us. A very personal decoration! Of course, it helps that it is beautiful 🙂 And it matches the other posters and photos we have on the walls in the flat since it also has a dark wooden frame.

I included a picture of this clock  just because it was such a bargain! We wanted a clock for the kitchen/living room area (we have an open-plan kitchen and living room), but our budget wasn’t very big. We had looked at a couple of clocks in TKmaxx which looked similar to this one, but they all cost a little bit more than we fancied paying at the time. Then by coincidence, we ended up in a “Home bargain” shop and found this clock which cost us around £2!! So cheap and it still fits perfectly in the place where we wanted to put it.

Another little detail which I love in the kitchen area is this oven mitt which Phill gave me for my birthday (I had asked for one). It is really cute and makes the kitchen look homier. Also, it really helps when I bake something 🙂

Not the best picture quality, but this is a clever little thing which used to hang in my parents’ house but which they didn’t want anymore, so I asked if I could have it. It’s a shoe organiser! This way we can keep track of at least some of our shoes and avoid a mess on the floor in the wardrobe.

This is a new addition to my growing collection of candle holders. I got this one from my god parents a few weeks ago in Sweden, as a graduation gift. It instantly became a new favourite since I absolutely love green (can you tell by the table cloth?) and it just looks so cool with the rough stone edges.

Finally, these aren’t exactly part of the flat decorations, but I just wanted to show the pretty cards I got when I graduated a bit over a month ago. I didn’t think that I would celebrate that much, but then I got all these cards (and some nice gifts like the one above) and it really made me happy! In this picture you can also see our mug/cup coasters in the shape of small vinyls. That was a gift from me to Phill last Christmas and we have been using them a lot ever since. They look cool, but we are now on the look-out for some more neutral looking ones that we could use when we want some variation.

Anyway, those were some of the things that we like and have decorated the flat with. I hope you enjoyed the little sneak peek! There will be more posts about this later when we have bought some more furniture 🙂

259. I try so hard to be strong at all times…

… but sometimes I need to be weak! This last weekend was quite strange for me; I felt really bad during parts of it and the Sunday ended up being an emotional roller-coaster.  But the weird thing is that now when I think back on it,, I actually think that it was one of the best weekends in a long time.

I had several important conversations with Phill, Sebastian and my parents and even though I cried and felt miserable at times, talking to them made me feel stronger and better armed to continue coping with the things I was feeling anxious about. After a very serious discussion with mum and dad yesterday I sort of had two successive “therapy sessions” which did me a lot of good: First mum and I went for a long walk in the crisp autumn air (through the orange and yellow forest!) and then, later in the evening, I played duets with dad on the violin for the first time since April (!). I was happily surprised to discover that it was quite easy to take it up again  and because of that it made me feel quite good. We played a mixture of folk music and classical pieces and it was really fun!

Apart from that I also wrote two poems in Swedish this weekend. It’s been a while, so that was nice. Although I didn’t do any work on my essays which I guess I technically ought to have done (at least I had planned to do it), but I still have some time, so I don’t need to panic quite yet…

I feel great today! That’s probably why I remember the weekend so positively… Or maybe the good end to the weekend made me feel positive today? It’s probably a combination… Hopefully this nice positive energy will stick around for a while! Fingers crossed 😉
Now I’m gonna have some coffee and watch “Who do you think you are?”.

Have a nice evening!

252. Mist

I think this might be my favourite out of all the poems I have written… I wrote it in the spring this year and it means a lot to me.

you are beautiful now
dark waves of silky brown
shadows like you wished for
in your eyes

life was more than
standing in line with you
it was capitals, poets
proposals
and broken bridges
opera with cream

you always tip-toed
along the edges at an angle
shy of ordinary things
strong only in your
vulnerable mask
proud only of your
hidden insanity

we could perhaps
walk hand in hand
say “I would marry you”
like little girls again
but only in another universe

through the smoke
and foreign chatter
on a train in no-mans-land
I changed
and so did you
among the mountain cigarettes
we silently moved on

I wrote page after page
piles of failed attempts
I had no words for us
I never told you
I wrote poetry
this is my last sentence for you 

248. Not strong enough

I often disappoint myself.

242. Your attitude matters

I did not end up taking good care of myself today in the end. I don’t know how many times I have told myself what I’m going to say now, but I think that  I need a reminder again: Things don’t need to be one of two extremes! Just because I fail to live exactly the way I feel that I should one day doesn’t mean that I should stop caring completely. This is something which I find very hard. In the last week I have had three days of perfect eating patterns, proper training, the correct bedtime etc. I have come home and felt strong, brilliant and positive. During the days when I have not gone training however, I have failed with the food, sleeping and other things too! It’s strange how fragile the balance seems to be…

One of the most important lessons I learned last autumn with my councellor however was to not beat myself up too much after a “failed” day, and this is luckily something which I now manage to achieve most of the time. Sure, I ate horrendous amounts of “bad” things yesterday and today, but there are positive things to focus on too: I wrote one fourth of an essay today, I spent time with my brother, I took that wonderful morning walk and I talked to Phill again. Food is important and you should be healthy, but it shouldn’t control my life. So, instead of hating myself I am focusing on the fact that tomorrow is a new day and I’m looking forward to it.

Good night everyone!

227. Kind of Personal

My feelings go up and down a lot; it has been like that for many years and I am sort of used to it. The fact that I can live with it doesn’t mean that I like it though, and it is particularly annoying in the summer when I get the feeling that the mood swings get worse!  It makes sense that they would – it is probably because I don’t have my so important routines then.

Anyway, it is really tiring to keep swaying between intense happiness and sensations of loneliness and pessimism (and tears) all the time. I have mentioned before that I would swap those happy moments any day just to be able to be more “in harmony” over all, I would really prefer that…. Today I have been on both ends of the spectrum several times and it has been annoying. Hopefully the coming week will be filled with more happiness than sadness however, because  we are back in lovely London now.  I love this place; When we were here three weeks ago I had such a great and relaxing time and today I immediately felt some kind of relief (or maybe a sensation of being “at home”) when we arrived with our heavy backpacks. It didn’t really matter that it is rather cold and that the rain started to pour down just as we got out of the train, the afternoon was nice anyway.

200. One-word journal

In many cases it is more difficult to get a message across in just a few words than it is to do it in a long text; being concise is often tricky. I have a category in my Swedish blog which I call “Three words”. The idea of that group of posts is to try to pick the three words which best describe and convey what is going on in my life. Yesterday when Phill and I were in town with my family who are visiting right now, I found a journal which had taken this concept one step further. We went to a large book shop and I got stuck in the stationary section for ages, looking at notebooks and diaries. One of the books in the latter category was small, green and entitled “The One-Word Journal”. On each little sheet in this journal was a line and the title: “Today’s Word:”, the idea being that the owner should try to find one  single word to describe their day/state of mind etc. Talk about being concise!

I thought about which word I would have picked for my day yesterday if I would have had a journal like that. I soon realised that it was a close to impossible task; what aspect of the day should I focus on? Should I concentrate on the fact that I wasn’t feeling very good physically (stressed, anxious, tired and with a sore throat) or should I choose a word which instead conveyed the happiness of being with the people I care the most about and having lovely food, coffee and cakes? Or should I focus on our activities (shopping, walking, eating etc.)? I deduced that I would have to think outside the box if I wanted to find a word that successfully described all of those feelings at once! In the end I decided that a methaphor/symbolic word might be appropriate and I finally settled for “Soufflé”. Soufflés are tasty and lovely if everything is done in the right way, but can easily collapse if you are not careful enough. That is a bit how I felt yesterday – lovely moments most of the time, but with downs in between when things went wrong for me… Soufflé is also an appropriate word for yesterday since it is a dessert/cake, because we took many coffee breaks, as you should when you are a true Swede on holiday!

I don’t know what will come out of this day quite yet. We have planned to go to the Sherwood forest, but beyond that I will have to wait and see. However, I am planning to take a deep breathe and try to stand upright all the time today instead of going up and down like a jo-jo. Therefore today’s word is: “Mindfulness”

What’s your word of the day?

154. Why you should think before you say anything

A few days ago I wrote about one of my weaknesses: Being bad at coping with unexpected changes. Unfortunately that is not my only weak point; I also happen to possess the lovely quality of often not thinking before I think or act. This is something which has a few big disadvantages:

1. Sometimes I say things which are utterly moronic. I might not be Einstein, but I’m not stupid either. People who hear me say the types of things that I sometimes blurt out without thinking probably don’t think highly of me though. The other day we were discussing the fact that the word “tummy” comes from “stomach”. I then said:
“Hm, I wonder where the word “belly” comes from..” and when I didn’t get an answer I said “maybe it is called belly because of the belly-button”. I realised how stupid this comment was while I was still saying it, but what could I do about then!? Nothing! I just had to laugh and wish that somebody one day will invent a “regret” button for real life…

2. Sometimes I lie to people without realising. Don’t worry, this is not a major issue. I have however a few times in the past managed to say things a bit too quickly without controlling my sources and thus spread misinformation to others. The best example I can think of right now, which I also felt incredibly bad about for years, is an incidence that took place in primary school. Our teacher had said at some point that we were going to finish earlier some day during the week. I did not remember exactly which day this was supposed to be, but one day when we had all had a sports event I started saying to some of my friends “Weren’t we supposed to finish after this?”, which of course was spread quickly by everyone who heard it as “WE FINISH SCHOOL NOW!”
I myself stayed behind because I had a meeting with my teacher and parents’ that afternoon and I was therefore there when my teacher came back a few minutes later. He asked where everyone had gone and I said that “someone” had said that we could go home. The teacher was annoyed but praised me for still being there… The next day he asked the class at large who had said that we could go home and everyone shouted (like kids do): “IT WAS HANNA!”

3. Sometimes I hurt people. This is not fun in any way so I will not tell any anectdotes. Thankfully this is also quite rare, but sometimes I just manage to say the wrong things at the wrong time.

4. I can’t live up to my own writing promises! I am keeping all my fingers and toes crossed (ouch…) that this will not happen with my current project, as I have told you many times, However, it has happened on numerous occasions before that I have enthusiastically told people about my undertakings and promised to show them the completed product, or even just promised myself to finish a project for a specific deadline only to then fail spectacularly…

I hope your image of me is not completely deranged now when I have revealed two such unpleasant traits in a relatively short period of time. I promise, as much as I do make mistakes and mess things up on a regular basis, I also have some good sides. Perhaps I don’t talk about these as often as I should, but who knows; I might explain the reasons why I am actually quite nice and ordinary another day!

These pictures are quite old and silly, but I thought it was appropriate here…

See you tomorrow I hope!