Rice cakes

Hello all. Just wanted to jump in with a quick tip of a delicious food I found in the store the other day, organic rice cakes flavoured with either apples or honey. They are delicious and my favorite snack at the moment. You can find it in your local store.

Now I need to go, as I got invited to a VIP opening for one of the local second hand shops. Will talk about that later on today. Ciao.

Blog turning 1 year: A lookback on August, September and October 2011

Hey again. I’m doing a summery of my first year as a blogger, and I thought that we should go straight away and look at what I did in August, September and October last year.

August 2011

In August I went to a lot of jumble sales, and found a few things for my flat. Like a cute childrens book and a bowl (which I still have not found a use for, but I love it anyway).

I found a new favorite colour in grey, and used this dress a lot. (Seriously, was I that skinny? I can’t remember that. It feels like I have always been pregnent. But it is not long left anyway).

I also tried a little more tough style for a few days, but realised it was not something for me.

My little godson also got baptised. Wow I can not imagine he has been that small and cute. Not that he is not cute now, but it was more of a tiny cuteness back then.

At the party after the baptism. It was so much fun that day.

My camera also died this month (thanks to a surprise super rain that went through my jacket and the cameras protection) so the last photo of me during August is this photo mum took. It was also then I realised how much I love high waist skirts, and I now have 4 of these.

And oh, Adam moved in with me in August. Just thought you should know.

September 2011

Adam and I went to Edinburgh in September, as his sister was getting married. Edinburgh is such a lovely town, and I recommend everyone to go there at least once. It is perfect for honeymoons for example, if you don’t want to go to Paris like everyone else.

The wedding itself was adorable, and everyone looked so happy. As it was the first time I used the new camera, it took some time before I worked out what to do with it.

Edinburgh was also full of jungle statues when we were there, and we actually bought a small green elephant to have as a souvenir.

Well at home, I had a mad passion for purple and hats…

and brought Scotland home with me

And that was all from September. The rest of the month I had the flu and lay at home in bed, and was not sure where the world was or where I was.

October 2011

In October I tried to make the summer last longer, by wearing wedges with socks.

and went all colourful all the time. Adam and I took long walks around Norrköping, so he could socialize with his new hometown.

I picked lavender boquets in the park…

…and ate a lot of expensive chocolate.

It also was Culture Night here in Norrköping with graffiti art…

…normal art…

and fire shows.

I also had the good fortune of trying barbequed marshallows for the first time. Sickly sweet, but delicious if you have it only a few times a year.

In October I also found out I was pregnent, and that caused a severe shock in me, and I had 2 months where I only thought about one thing: OH MY GOSH, I’M A MUM SOON. THAT IS NOT HAPPENING!!!

This was the last photo I took for my blog in October, where I discussed uglyness, as I felt really ugly knowing I was pregnent. I know that is horrible, but I went through a period of real bad self esteem the first months of my pregnancy.

And that’s it for my autumn last year. Hope you all enjoyed it.

Ida Pyk – Paris Chérie

It was a long time ago I wrote about some of the books I’ve read, so here comes a little book post. One of the latest books that I came across was this book by Ida Pyk, the author I met in April, and my first thoughts were that it was such a little wonderful book, something every teenage girl should read. The images, the main character Alva and the fact it takes place in Paris, that it’s a favorite town for many girls, these are just some of the reasons why it should be read.

As it also takes up some of the darker aspects in life, like having an alcoholic parent it can give many people the chance of seeing themselves in them and know that they are not alone. That is something I know by experience many teenagers have feelings about, that it’s them against the world, and so many out there want to do as Alva did, take their things and run off to a remote area, far away from all the problems in their life. Alva gets to experience that she doesn’t not feel happy even if she went to Paris, and I guess that is the message of the book. Running away doesn’t help you.

It is not all dark and gloomy though. Alva also gets to experience real love for the first time, and Ida wrotes so delightfully about the first time you love someone, how you wait ages for that phone call to come, how scared you are of losing that special someone. This part of the book is carefully written, just as fragile as the first love can be.

If you want to buy the book, Bokus online has it in stock.

Friday barbeque

Last Friday Adam and I got invited to the barbeque that was being held by the board for the house we live in, and we got really excited by it, as it gave us a great chance of getting to know our neighbours. Around 6pm that day we went out to the garden behind our house and said hello, talked, laughed and had a great night with a lot of food and competitions. We maybe also got a few new friends, which is always great. Unfortunally we could not stay that long, as I got so tired, that is what late pregnancy does to you. Funnily enough though, there was an entire bunch of nurse students there, so I was in the best of hands if something happened. Here are some of my photos of the evening, enjoy.

Being a student gives you a great chance of meeting new people, and starting at the University is one of the best decisions I have ever made, as it has taught me a lot of things, and I’ve made new friends. I hope I get to do this again some day.

Rhubarb Smoothie

The rhubarb is fully grown now, and that means I can make a lot of things with rhubarb in it, like pie and rhubarb sponge cake. One new thing I am into is smoothies, and as I am a fan of sour and acidic things, I decided to make a rhubarb smoothie one morning. Here is my super easy recipe:

Rhubarb Smoothie, 1 glass

50 grams of rhubarb

2 deciliters of plain yoghurt (I use organic creamy yoghurt for this)

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

2 teaspoons of honey (for reducing the sour taste, optional)

Chop the rhubarb into ½ a centimeter pieces. Put yoghurt and cinnamon and honey in a bowl and mix it a little. Then add the chopped rhubarb, and then use a hand mixer or a food processer until there’s no bits of rhubarb left. Pour it into a glass. I added a little cinnamon on top and a rhubarb stick to make it look a little tastier. Et voila, the rhubarb smoothie is done.

My meatosaurus Ådi

Ådi is on holiday at the moment at my mother’s house, as I am too pregnent to be much fun for him. I miss him a lot though, but the cute little texts mum sends about him is making the longing a little easier. Today she was also kind enough to make an entire video about him eating real meaty quality dog food, and how it vanishes in less then a minute. Ådi seemed to think that was so yummy.

World’s cutest dog. <3

Blog turning 1 year: A lookback on May, June and July 2011

Oh gosh, I was looking through old blog posts and I realised that this blog has turned one. Hurray! And what a year it has been, I got married, Adam moved to live with me, I’ve been to both Scotland and England, and most important of all, I got pregnant. I thought it was going to be celebrated with some photos from the year that has been, month per month. Let’s start with what happend the 3 first months of my blogging, during May, June and July.

May 2011

In May 2011 I was preparing to being married, finishing my first year in University and going everywhere in my favorite wedges which unfortunally got destroyed.

I also celebrated Mother’s day with chocolate balls and Singoalla biscuits, and gave mum a book about shoes.

And I spent the day taking quite egotistical photos of myself. My favorite combination back then was pink and orange, and I had heels quite a lot.

June 2011

I got married to Adam, and never been happier in my life.

Got a lot better in taking self portraits. Just look on these two, woosha:

And I spent a lovely midsummer with some friends from my party, Sweden’s Miljöpartiet. I remember it was the first time I tried herring, and I really liked it, so I am defiently going to eat it again this midsummer if I get the chance.

And I watched Kung Fu Panda with my little brother on his birthday. I have a weak spot for child movies, as they are not violent and always have a happy ending.

And spent rainy days cuddling with dogs indoors.

July 2011

In July I was at a camping festival in England with my now husband Adam. I got the chance to meet a lot of his friends and spent quite a few days away from civilisation, which felt really nice.

I had a crush on animal prints and patterns over all.

And I got to meet my godson Loke for the very first time.

Is that not adorable?

And I went with mum to a hiphop concert, with a gigantic dinosaur on the roof nearby. It was certainly a weird concert, as neither of us are big fans of hiphop, but it was a day to remember.

And I went to a lot of other concerts, like Sahara Hotnights

And I got my hands on probably the weirdest sunglasses in my collection. I love them though!

And that was those 3 months. The upcoming week I will post about the other months too.

Ultimate Lotion Test

Being pregnent is really the ultimate test for your skin, as it both gets a lot dryer and more sensitive to weather, wind and that the skin stretches out far more then it should too. As most people know, this cause stretch marks, which basically is scar tissue on your skin. Charming? I think not. I have, since I found out I was pregnent been trying out a lot of new lotion products, in order to find the best one for my skin and I thought I should show you the three best ones I found.

1). Organic Almond Body Lotion.  2). Ecorganic Pregnancy Stretch Mark Oil. 3). Sweet Pea Body Duo Butter.

Going from left to right, I’ve concluded the above products are the best ones for my skin, which is really sensitive to a lot of things (hence why I do not use things like foundation, makes it look horrible). I have divided the test into 5 different categories: smell, price, consistency, drying time(as it is never nice to walk around with clothes stuck to your body) and effect (how good it was to make the skin less sensitive).

1. Organic Almond Body Lotion from Compagnie de Provence

• Smell: A strong nutty but still pleasent smell, but it disappers after an hour or so. If you’re not a fan of nuts, I recommend you buy their Verbena lotion instead.
• Price: Costs around 200 SEK or 20 GBP
• Consistency: Creamy, and doesn’t stick to the fingers.
• Drying time: Around 10 minutes
• Effect: It made my skin feel really nice, and the itch which you get from stretch marks vanished after I put it on. I still use it now, in late pregnancy and it has not let me down. no new stretch marks has appared since I started to use this. Disadvantage is though that you got to put it on 2-3 times per day, to get the best effect.

2. Ecorganic Pregnancy Stretch Mark Oil from Estelle & Thild

• Smell: Horrible. It smells of nuts too, but not in a pleasent way.
• Price: 245 SEK or 25 GBP
• Consistency: As it is an oil, it’s liquid, which I like a lot.
• Drying Time: Just 2-3 minutes, which is great if you’re in a hurry.
• Effect: This one is made for pregnent skin and I have to say it was great the first six months of the pregnancy, not an itch nor a stretch mark in sight.  But when my stomach got too big, this ceased to work at all, it just felt horrible and I got a lot of stretch marks, which made me quickly move on to other things.

3. Sweet Pea Body Duo Butter from The Body Shop

• Smell: I liked the smell, but Adam didn’t. So I guess it is all up to the person who’s using it to decide which smell you prefer from this series. Apart from sweet pea, there’s vanilla, acai, and macadamia.
• Price: 185 SEK or 19 GBP
• Consistens: As it is a duo body butter, one of the butters is really creamy and moist, and the other is dryer and quite hard to spread out on the body.
• Drying Time: Hours! This one takes ages to dry, so I only use it before I go to bed.
• Effect: This was the first product I used and it worked fairly well on my skin. The reason I stopped using it though was because it took so long time for it to sink into the skin. This is it’s big disadvantage.

So, these are my opinions about the three products I’ve tried so far and I have to say that only the Almond Body Lotion really won my heart. The other two have their weaknesses and strengths, but in the end, they did not really work for me. So, if you are pregnent (or are just after a pretty good lotion) I recommend the Almond Body Lotion.

Boiling an egg

It is not often I get the chance to eat eggs, as I refuse to buy none organic ones, and the organic ones cost double, so when I get the chance to eat them, It’s a real luxery for me and I serve them with only the best of foods. Like today, I had eggs for breakfast, which I ate with polar bread, red pepper and a nice cup of Earl Grey tea. The trick to make the perfect boiled egg is to let it boil for 8 minutes exactly, no more, no less. Et voila, you’ve got yourself a great breakfast.

Sunday BBQ

Sometimes you just need to spoil yourself, have a nice dinner with your husband and just be together, especially after a hard week where you’ve barely been seeing each other thanks to exams. That’s what happened to me yesterday, when Adam and I felt spontanious and had this years first barbeque in the lovely sunlight. The hamburgers were on the barbeque (both vegetarian and normal ones), salad was being made and Adam had made his delicious chips. All of this made a lovely dinner for two. Or three, if you count the baby.

I was all dressed up and ready in my best vintage maternity dress (60′s vintage is my guess) and new tights from H&M Maternity. Pretty much the only things I can fit into at the moment.

I was in charge of the hamburgers, both veggie and meatie ones, and I think I did fairly well for being a lousy chef.

While Adam was indoors and fried the chips, I made our sitting place a little nicer with some of our flowers and a tray I found in the bin. That is crazy, thinking of that the tray was made in 1888. Some people do not appreciate the loveliness of old things.

Finally the chips arrived, and they were lovely as always. I married Adam for his cooking skills (joke cutie).

<3

Extra big with double gloucester cheese, chili powder and a lot of salad hidden under the burger. Together with a lemon soft drink it was a good steady meal.

And that was our Sunday dinner for two. Luxerious for a student, but worth it what so ever. Thanks cutie for a great day.