Summer break

So, I've been absent for a while again, I'm a bit slack at this blog thing!

We've been away on Summer Break - having been away from home for essentially a year (except for the couple of weeks I went home to pack up our apartment) we decided that we should head back to Oz for a visit...  Stupid really at this time of year, because it's winter there!!  We've had the longest winter of our lives - left just as spring was starting in 2009 to head to South America, where we spent 3 of our 5.5 months in Cusco (at altitude in the Andes) not exactly warm!  Then headed back to Oz in March 2010 - just in time for winter to start...  Heading off for Europe July 2010 - and up to Sweden where summer is not exactly what we're used to and was very short lived before a REALLY loooonnnnggggg winter - and so, of course why would we not keep up the trend and avoid summer yet again..?

Crazy - but we needed to see friends and family and have a taste of home for a minute or two...  

So we fly in - have a day in Melbourne before flying up to Mildura for 5 days.  Chill there for the week, I play in the scrapping room a bit with my step-mum and SO plays in the back room on his computer (with dad across the room doing the same thing)...  Did some shopping for essentials, a couple of lunches/dinners out, and a couple of visits from step-siblings and kids and a quick catch up with an Aunty and the 5 days was all over...

Heading back to Melbourne we had dinner with a friend, before I headed for an all day scrapping day with girlfriends.  Gee I miss that - the camaraderie and laughs and inspiration and friendship in a room full of scrapping women - here my crafting is very isolated, and it was a real boost for me to be able to fit in a day full of those girls this trip.  A day of running errands and visiting my grandparents and then we were off again for 5 days in Northern NSW with SO's parents. 

Trips into the nearest towns around them a few times, breakfasts and lunches out, a visit to SO's grandparents to take them out for lunch and again in the blink of an eye another week of our visit was gone...  Back to Melbourne for a weekend of catch ups with friends and our week in Melbourne - kicked off with some family time, some more errands, doctors and dentists visits and a couple of days in the Melbourne office.  Friday night drinks with friends and some weekend family time and suddenly our time in Oz was up...

Three weeks seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, too little time to catch up with people and everyone caught up with in groups, so very little of the meaningful individual catch up time that allows you to actually know what's going on in people's lives and what has actually changed in the time we've been gone...  But at least a taste of home and the people we love...

Flying back 'home' to Sweden we stopped in Bangkok for 5 days to have a bit of a holiday - and some much needed sunshine.  I did some (quite little) shopping, some swimming (or at least splashing around) and some sun bathing (I never do that!!).  And the one touristy thing that we did was go to visit the 'Tiger Temple'.  Such an amazing experience for us both:

The Big 'Oh'

Well, for those of you who know me - you'll know that I recently had a birthday - a big 'oh' birthday...  Oh, as in oh - am I really -that- old?!!  I've been busy since then so, haven't had a chance to blog - but have been dying to as it was the best adventure yet!!  WARNING - this is a LONG post, but it was a great adventure - I have to share it all, grab a cuppa and indulge me if you care to come along for the ride.

I had thought that I would be spending the Friday night with SO, and then on the Saturday night we were heading out with a group of people from work for a night of dinner, drinks and laughter at a pub type location here in Stockholm.  It had gotten quite close (about a month out) and I hadn't set a location for this get together and SO (lovely man that he is) volunteered to take on the job of tracking down a location, and doing the set up for said gathering...  Well, apparently by this time there were already other plans well underway that I knew nothing about...

It all started (for me anyway) on the Tuesday - when I received a formal invitation to 'mystery date night' on the Wednesday night with SO.  Our date nights are a newly instigated thing and happen once a month - it was due the week before, but we'd both been really busy and nothing had been organised - we still went out for a walk and for dinner (probably the worst we've had since we've lived here!) but SO did say that he had something he was trying to organise for a date night really soon, that he really thought I'd enjoy...  So, while it was a little bit of a surprise that it came through so quickly - I was really excited that he'd gone to trouble to organise something - a bit perplexed as to why it needed such a formal invitation - but none the less excited...

Wednesday mornings are early ones for us - we have a meeting with the team in Melbourne via skype and -have- to be in the office by 8.30am for that to start (we normally start around 9)...  And, those of you who know me - know that I'm so NOT a morning person - so I am a notorious snoozer...  SO normally is too - but this morning his alarm went off at the same time as mine (it's normally set for about 20 mins later) and he didn't snooze at all - in fact he practically jumped out of bed as soon as it went off...  He went rustling about in the store room (next to our bedroom) and came back in with a nest of 3 suitcases, dumped them on the bed:

SO: Come on, get up - you have to help me pack this
Me: What?
SO: You're not going to work today - come on you have to help me pack this
Me: I'm sorry what (there was a bit of that this particular day)
SO: I think you heard me, you're not going to work today - you need to get up and help me pack this
Me: The giant suitcase?  (Yeah, I was really on the ball!)
SO: Maybe the next size down, but come on - you have to get up...

Rubbing my eyes I dragged myself off to the bathroom and still rubbing my eyes and puzzling returned to the bedroom to help pack for 'mystery date night'.  It needed enough clothes to get me through until about Tuesday, at least one 'nice' outfit for wearing out, and I should pack for weather much like we're currently having...  Oh, and we need to be packed and out of here within an hour...

Right, that achieved we were out the door in search of a cab.  Loaded into one - we were off to the airport...  I don't remember much about the ride - I was still reeling and trying to wake up...  Safely deposited at the airport, SO leads me inside and up to one of the check yourself in computers...  Can I have your passport please - and he scans it, then asks me to take over the check in...  So I start clicking through the screens until I get to one that says I'm checking us both in to fly from Stockholm to New York - the look on my face was why he wanted me to drive - he has that surprised shock on film (well, on memory card anyway)!!

There was some drama at the airport due to Delta's computer system going down, and then a fairly boring 8-ish hour flight - let me fast forward past that.

We arrived into JFK airport, to SO telling me that oh, by the way the driver from the hotel who he'd ordered to pick us up may have a photographer with him...  Or he might just have a small camera himself, not to sure - just wanted to give me the heads up...  Hmmm, that tip may have been a bit handy when I'd mentioned after you'd packed the bathroom bag and zipped up the case that I hadn't even gotten to brush my hair that morning... *rolls eyes* Anyway, it took us a few minutes to find the driver with our sign, because we came out the wrong door.  But then we found him (no one with him thankfully!), and as we're walking up the hill outside the terminal he informs us that the airport have rules that don't allow him to bring the car in close - he'll go for the 10 minute walk to get the limo and then meet us at this spot...  I'm sorry what - yes, that's right 'the limo'...  When it pulls up - there's someone in the passenger seat pointing a video camera out - I was less happy about having one of those in my face than a still!!  Never the less, into the limo we get and have a bit of a drive to the hotel...

When we get there the driver (and his assistant) open up the car door to allow us to get out and I pop out to a girl standing there welcoming me to New York - thanks, OH MY GOD - it's my best mate from Oz (who doesn't live in the same state as me, so time together is quite rare).  I let out one of those girly squeals you hear in the movies (and yes, embarrassingly all caught on file) and grab hold of her and start babbling and blubbering.  Are you kidding me - not only am I in THE place I always wanted to go to for this milestone, but Bestie is also there - SENSATIONAL!

Into the hotel (the Sofitel on 44th Street) for check in, and the man handing over the keys says 'Mr SO - you have a lovely suite on the 15th floor'.  I'm sorry - what??  (oh yeah - I did warn there was a bit of that!!)  Yep, a suite - in the Sofitel - in New York - for my big 'oh' - and Bestie's there too...  Oh My God!!  There was some time of - I can't believe we pulled this off, and stories of how long they'd been in contact cooking up all the plans - Oh My God!  Some more girly giggling and carrying on while I called mum (at very early in her morning) to tell her where I was and then called another close friend 'P' who's recently moved to NYC with his partner - Oh My God!!

The actual birthday day was very full - some shopping in the morning, lunch with Bestie, SO and P at P's favorite restaurant, then off to my next 'appointment'.  An envelope handed to me in the cab explaining that my colleagues on the project we're working on in Stockholm had pooled together and gotten me a helicopter ride over NYC - and we were off to the helipad... OMG!  Some waiting around there and then a sensational view or 10 of NYC later we were off running back to the hotel to change for dinner.  An early one, as there were later plans already.  We arrive for dinner - which Bestie had booked in a revolving restaurant overlooking the New York skyline - OMG!!  Freaked me out some - a migraine that was setting in had disoriented me some - but once I was sat down for a while and used to the movement, OMG - sensational!!  And then we were off to a show (on Broadway, thanks very much) called Rock of Ages - funny, loud, daggy 80's hair band type musical.  What a day!

Saturday was spent mostly doing touristy type stuff, I won't drag you all through - but Saturday night SO had booked tickets to see Cirque du Soliel's brand new show (launched only the day before the birthday) at Radio City Music Hall, called Zarkarna.  Wow - I LOVE Cirque shows, and while this one was different to all the others I've seen - just amazing (as always).

Sunday was again spent mostly sightseeing - but did include the Empire State Building!  It took longer than we'd expected to get up to the observation decks and have a look around - but amazing when we got to, and the whole building (like a lot of New York - including our hotel) is Art Deco - gorgeous decorations and details throughout. It was just unbelievable to finally be in this place that I've seen on so many TV shows and movies for years and years - unreal!

And then there was Sunday night - a night of a barrel of laughs, a bushel of tears, good food, lethal drink, super friends, and all round good company.  Dinner at a great place in Hell's Kitchen with SO, Bestie, P and his partner M.  Entertaining waiters, oh and it was the Tony award night (Broadway awards) so they were all beside themselves and playing up an absolute treat to us!  A night where in between laughing and drinking ourselves pretty silly - I tried to explain what it had meant to me that SO and Bestie had colluded all this time and that they'd pulled off such an AMAZING, just flat out AMAZING trip.  And how much it had meant to me that it was in the place where I'd always wanted to go, and now with P and M there - I got the extra bonus of getting to celebrate with them too!!

Ridiculous for such an anally retentive control freak to have been so 'out of control' for a week but oh so worth it...  What an adventure!!  Thanks guys - love you xxx

How blog got it's name...

Not long before I started this blog, a friend of mine shared a link on Facebook - it was a lovely, romantic proposal story that made me smile and cry (I'm a sucker for mushy, romantic stuff) and I in turn shared the link with my Facebook friends - thinking that in doing so I was effectively 'bookmarking' the link for myself and I'd be able to go back and read about it any time I wanted...

Then, I decided it would be good to start a blog - it would enable me to keep whoever was interested up to date with what was going on in life (this life I still pinch myself often to believe is my own).  It felt like it would be a bit more personal than Facebook updates or bulk emails - partly because I can just write it like it's for me, and partly because while everyone linked to me gets the Facebook updates, only the people who want to, who actually choose to will take the time to read an account of what's actually going on...

I have thought for the last few weeks that I should have the link to the story on the blog itself - after all it's part of the blog's story, but just hadn't gone looking for it to paste it in here...  This morning I noticed a competition on shimelle.com a scrapbooking site that I read often and the source of some fabulous online training that I've been loving...  Anyway, the competition http://www.shimelle.com/paper/1038/scrapbooking-giveaway-day/ for anyone interested - is to win an autographed book by an artist called Rob Ryan and the story about the proposal started with a print by this very artist...

So, as part of entering the comp myself - and in the interests of telling the story of how blog got to be what it is I went in search of the link.  Much to my dismay Facebook - as it is want to do, all too often for my liking - has made 'improvements' which mean I could no longer find the link...  Not on my wall, profile or the profile of the friend who shared it in the first place. :(  Thankfully she was online in Facebook chat and after a bit of dribbling from me about wanting to find the link - her and her partner went in search of it for me!!  Thanks so much Sam and Damian!!

And so, the link with the story and the print and all the romantic mushyness here for all your enjoyment, and part of the documentation of the story of the blog - Adventure....  Enjoy!

The continuing adventures with Swedish hairdressers...

Another Swedish hairdressing experience...

*deep breath* Well, About a week and a half ago I had another 'interesting' hairdressers visit.  I had decided to go dark - a big change from my normally blonde-ish tones...  I'd been thinking on it for a while, which speaks to me that it's something I really want to do.  I called my hairdresser at home - she'd done a dark colour for me a couple of years ago that I was really happy with and was hoping to replicate, so I got some instructions and colour numbers from her.  

I went into a hair salon and discussed my idea with the hairdresser, and even showed her a photo of me with a similar colour to what I was looking for to show her that dark hair is fine on me - when I'm blonde and so pale I can understand that might freak a hairdresser out!!  Ok, so she repeats back to me - in broken English - that she's going to tone my hair and then put the final colour in it.  This is all sounding like a good start...  Here's the photo:

And where we were starting from (not the best shot - I was playing in the park):

She sits me at the basin and tones, then applies a colour before plonking me back in the chair to wait for the processing time...  We get to the end, rinse, wash, etc and return to the chair in front of the mirror...  She starts moving around to get styling products and I'm looking at this extremely bland in-between coloured hair.  

Me: So, just to check - is it going darker??  

Her: No - that's it now...  

Me: Ah, no - it's not

Her: You don't like it?

Me: No, I don't like it - it's a shitty in between colour, I'm not happy with that (mind you  - it's this horrid in between colour, and it's still wet - so it's getting lighter before I leave the salon - not happy at all)...

Her: Well, you were blonde when you came in...

Me: I don't care - this looks nothing like the photo (show her the photo again)

Her: But, with your skin tone...

Me: The photo is of me - I have the same skin tone

Her: Well, I don't think that photo was good looking

At this point my head almost explodes with the desire to tell her I don't f-ing care what she thinks, I didn't come to ask her opinion I came for an expert who had the ability to achieve the look I wanted - and I was certainly not hoping she was going to pick me up, etc...

Her: If I make it any darker, it will go ashy and black

Me: It can't stay this colour

Her: Ok, well if you want it darker I can make it darker, it will only take 10 minutes

Me: Yes, please - I would like it darker

Ok - so she trims it and dries it off, then goes to mix the darker colour - which she proceeds to slap onto my head in a worse job than - I don't know, maybe a 5 year old might do - I have colour on my face, on my ears, on my neck...  And informs me that will be about 10 minutes.  No problem, and I sit in to wait out my time...  About 2 minutes later I spy her and one of her hairdresser friends walk past - handbags on shoulders, and I'm thing - no, couldn't possibly be...  And yet, yes - she's left for the night - no explanation that someone else will look after me or anything - no even glance in my direction as she struts off into the sunset... 

I was kind of flabbergasted at this point, but after 10 minutes or so passed one of the other girls washed my hair out - and then scrubbed my face, ears and neck to remove the colour before another blowed it dry...

The end result now I'm happy with - but man, getting it there!!  And yes, I'll try for a photo of the outcome - meanwhile here's a windblown one with my hair up (oh, and SO!)...

Some scrapping has been going on...

Here's my scrapping efforts for the last two weeks.  Sorry about the bad photos, I'd already packed most of the layouts away into an album and didn't pull them out of their sleeves:

Aunty love:

 

The girls:

 

True beauty:

 

Family:

 

All together now:

 

Sisterly love:

 

Old friends:

 

Family reunion:

 

Thanks for stopping by...

A lot has happened...

In the few weeks since I last blogged...

SO's parents came for a visit - it was wonderful to see them (the last time was about 14 months ago) and even though it was only for a long weekend (they're travelling around and Stockholm was a late and somewhat unexpected addition) it was wonderful to have a touch of home right here with us.  We did some sightseeing, and SO and his dad played handymen to stop the new toilet from leaking all over the floor.  We drank a lot of tea (they're English - they drink a LOT of tea!) and had a lovely, if far too short catch up.

And yes, you heard right - the new toilet was installed - badly, but the landlord...  He seems to be the absolute king of "near enough is good enough".  The toilet was installed and this time attached to both the water and the floor (although it's still a little unstable) but the seat and the lid were not attached to the toilet...  I'm sorry - what the..?  So, SO called the landlord back and pleaded "elderly mother coming to visit" and the landlord came back and attached them while we went off to the airport to pick up the parents - again, badly!  The greater problem came from the fact that something wasn't attached to the water pipes properly and so the floor was soaking wet for 2 days.

Now, I love SO and can't imagine life without him - but he is (even he will admit) about the least 'handy' man you could meet.  His dad on the other hand is very handy - and so they spent some 'boy' time together fixing the leaking, then balanced the washing machine, and replaced the tube connecting the shower head to the taps as that was splurting water all over the show...  Fantastic for me - I now have a bathroom that's working much better than it was before - and for both of them I think, being able to just grab some 'boy' time together.

I had another 'interesting' experience with a Swedish hairdresser...  But that's probably a whole post on it's own...

We had a lovely day yesterday at an 'Aussie' bbq (well with a bunch of Aussies as well as a Canadian, a Spaniard and a couple of Swedes - at the Swedish home of an Aussie)...  A beautiful day out on the balcony of his apartment - with a lovely view, marred only by the fact that the wind was up and it was ABSOLUTELY FREEZING!!  Still, it was a brilliant day and we were there from lunch time until 11pm.

Oh, and there's been some scrapping going on - again, probably another post...

And now, we're counting down the days until we have a trip home to Oz...  Already by this time next month we'll be there - we've been trying to schedule in all the catch ups with people we need, as well as the appointments for the things we need - doc and dentist appointments (bleh)...  But, I'm so looking forward to having a good dose of family and friends for a few weeks.  A fabulous girlfriend of mine is even hosting an all day scrapping day - I can't wait to be back in the company of a room full of women, talking, laughing and catching up while sharing ideas and crafting together - it's one of the things I really miss about home, about once a month or so - getting together and scrapping.  In a country where you don't speak the language, even if there was a scrapping shop to compare to the ones at home (there isn't by the way - the best shop I've found is fabulous for shopping in, but the scrapping room is literally carved out of the bedrock and looks like a cave - a very small cave!) then I would feel like an invader (as I often do in conversations involving only Swedes) which is not really the point of scrapping with others...  So - all in all, I simply can't wait...

A whole month... how did that happen..?

Wow, a whole month - it's been a while...

There's been a bit going on - I had a bit more of a battle with salmonella, we had dramas at home with the internet, went off for a holiday over Easter to Malta, packed all our stuff, moved apartment and unpacked everything again...

While I was feeling better after I got smacked with salmonella while I was at home and resting and not eating much - I'd go back to work after the weekends and gradually (or suddenly depending on the week) decline.  I'd had the lovely stabbing pain that came along with the salmonella for almost a month in the end.    :(  I got a phone call from the Disease Centre chasing me up - obviously here as in many other places a doctor who discovers salmonella has to report it through.  The woman at the Disease Centre told me that there'd me about 20 people in this outbreak of a salmonella they've not seen here before (it had an indian name, but I can't really remember what it was!)  and had I eaten cashew nuts in the week I'd contracted it.  Well, I almost certainly had - I'd gotten a mixed bag of nuts from one of the supermarkets near work the week I returned from Oz and in fact I've been eating them on a regular basis (picking out the 'nice' ones like cashews) right up until that morning.  Well, of course a couple of days after I stopped eating contaminated nuts I started to feel much better!!

We were obviously in the middle of having found a new apartment to move in to and the landlord at the old place had started to get ready for some new tenants at our old apartment.  For some reason, part of this was ordering a new modem (although there were already 2 there - not really sure why!) in the process of this the company providing the internet (and modem) had decided that because there was a new modem on order the old one wasn't working - and so stopped the internet coming in on it...  Not very helpful to us when we still had something like 3 weeks left there.

Easter we jetted off to Malta - we spent the long weekend with a couple of other friends/colleagues and although we didn't have the best weather (can you believe it was warmer in Stockholm the weekend we were away?!!) we had a great time all together and a relax away from the project for such a long weekend.

The remainder of the week once we got back from Malta was spent packing - most of which was thankfully covered off in one 3.5 hour session.  Then we had the help of our friends/colleagues and a couple of trips in a rented station wagon to move everything last weekend.  One of the problems of this lifestyle is that you have to live with someone else's furniture (and often ugly things!) in your house.  It's great from the point of view that there's no furniture to move, but from the point of view of your everyday life that's the easier thing sometimes!!  The place we were in needed quite a bit of new furniture to finish it off, but there were lamps in both the bedroom and the lounge that were ok for us to live with - so we had the famous big trip to Ikea funded partly by the landlord.  But there was no pictures on the wall or ugly things around - this new place has ugly pics everywhere and ugly lamps in the lounge (none in the bedroom).  So, the last week has been spent trying to hide most of the ugly, trying not to kill the landlord (we were to have a washing machine installed in the bathroom - that has only worked since Friday just gone, and some more internet issues just for good measure!).  The whole trying to negotiate things when you don't share a first language and trying to get someone with a different work ethic to your timetable - well, let's just say it's less than easy!!

So, we currently have two toilets sitting in the bathroom - well, one sits - the other is actually kind of attached to the water anyway - not so much to the floor, while we wait for the landlord to install the new one.  And the washing machine - installed and looking pretty in the bathroom since we moved in on Saturday, got plugged in on Friday so we could use it - with a long extension cable into the lounge room!  Anyway - at least it works, and I've spent a bunch of time since then trying to work through the gianormous laundry pile that has accumulated since the day before we went to Malta.

So, that's been my last month - oh, apart from missing joining in on the live run of beyond blogging for scrapbookers and looking in any way at my reader with everyone's feeds in it - I'll be working to catch up on that sometime soon.  This week SO's parents arrive for a weekend visit, so we're counting down the days in earnest and getting excited to see them...