GROWING THE JUNGLE POT BY POT AND LEAF BY LEAF

Now as the sun has returned to our hemisphere it's time to show the plants some love, re-pot and take care of them after the winter darkness. This year I -finally- got a couple of plant lamps to help my green inhabitants survive the dark months better. I somewhere read a comparison of the amount of light, and it is ridiculously low here in winter (from some 100 000 lux on a summer's day to just 500 during the darkest period), which is of course pretty obvious if you live here, but to see the actual numbers on paper is pretty describing as well.

So now it's time for bigger pots for some, new soil and other care taking.

I have always liked to decorate with plants, especially to make a room nicer when it is still waiting for a touch up or renovation, as is the case with our living room downstairs. We finally got the most important parts renovated, like upstairs ( or: most of it, still some left...), and then the two-year-box-labyrinth-hell that was our former city flat cleaned up just in time for Christmas meaning we actually have a downstairs again, so any paint jobs will now have to wait. In the meantime I keep on growing our little jungle!

 We have a row of big plants working as a screen separating one part of the room from the other.

The cats take their roles as this jungle's mini panthers, chasing shadow pray.

More plants to come still!

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW - IN THE AFTERNOON SUNSHINE

Four things right-right now.

The books above my head.

A cat in the after noon sunshine.

Reading the Egytptian Book of the Dead (but now I got distracted with a documentary on Marie Antoinette's coiffures.)

I want Mikael Hadreas pants.

As a side note; this was the first time I made a post in one sitting without moving anything else than my arms to take photos and grab the laptop. So now we know that!

SUNSHINE

It's finally warm and sunny! Yesterday was the first day without socks outside!
There is hope after all!

Here I tried to swing like a happy monkey in a tree, to illustrate the fact that it's warm and and one can now go bazonkas and so on, but turns out it was harder than I thought. Plus I kind of got a little worried the branch would crack and hit me in the head and I'd basically die blogging.  But as you can't be totally fabulous or witty all the time you get my attempt here anyway.

This was also a sneaky outfit post. The top is from Freddies of Pinewood and the lurex thingies are h&m.

AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON

I was working from home today and took a long lunch break to go out on a little adventurous walk with Dag.

He had all his gear with him, and warned me not to step on the fallen leaves, as those would trap you and suck you right down to the hot lava core of earth.
(Good to know!)

It got a bit colder here in between and nature shifted colours so quickly - but now wonder; it's almost October by now!

Autumn textures.

Autumn leaves.

Autumn trees.

 We sat down on a rock for a little picnic.
The cats joined in; they often follow us around when out on walks!

 Everything tastes better when outdoors.


The sandwhich was so big for Dag he had to close his eyes in order to eat it.

And then we continued our little afternoon adventure in search of magic trees, watching out for dangerous rock-bombs dropping from the sky, evil cows and all the other things the vivid imagination of a four year old can come up with.

OUT IN THE GREEN

The other night when I couldn't sleep I did something I haven't done in almost a year I think: I browsed a couple of the blogs I used to read. I've missed reading blogs.  And both of them were just the same as they've always been, with similar photos and happenings and themes. Which made me laugh a bit at the fact that it's just the same over here as well. So now I'll do yet another post about me having a day off and thus finally get to attend things in my garden. But you know what they say, few things are as important...

We had lunch with Dag on the porch. Fresh tomato-filled pasta with herbs from my garden.
In the background you can see my tomato plants, which I planted from slices earlier this year. They've grown so well!

Here are the herbs "in action". As I suppose their action is growing.
This year I didn't grown them myself though as I was too late, so I bought them ready and planted.
Dag loves to water plants. He also loves to go on excursions and "secret discovery expeditions", which I once used to get him along on a walk and that he now wants to go out on all the time. But it can be turned into making plain things interesting: watering the plants turned into one task we had to do on our secret mission. Well, the kid actually loves to water plants. But it works well with other tasks.

 Dag equipped me with weapons, in case we ran into any bad guys.
(Also note my haute floppy pink home-wear shorts. Or un-note them. Not very picture worthy in any more vivid angles.)

 The cats serve as panthers.

The first thing we saw on our investigating excursion was that the wild strawberries are ready! THey are THE absolute taste of summer.

Noticed it will be a good cherry-year! Wohoo!
Last year we did not get any berries; I am not even sure the trees bloomed then.

And then we ended our mission by harvesting the rhubarb. Pie and jam coming up!


And I'll be bringing some (= a lot) of that pie out with me to the archipelago; heading out there for those classic three days of summer, family, food and wine (in moderate doses only folks!) tomorrow. Happy midsummer!

FOUR THINGS RIGT NOW: SUNSHINE, WARM WINDS, HAPPY CATS AND MOTHERSDAY

It's finally warm and sunny  -yes I know I said that already but it really has such a big impact on everything around here!

Dag and I had our first outdor lunch on the back porch.

 And I opened my mother's day card and gift - the bracelet on my wrist- he'd made me in playschool today already as I will be away tomorrow on the actual day.

And look! My tomato plants planted from tomato slices a month ago are growing! They seemed to do so earlier but then disappeared back into the soil and I though they'd died but here they are making their way up towards the sunshine!

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: THE LIGHT IS BACK

 Lulu enjoying the sunshine by the window.

(I drove in to work to town and saw Pekka -that's the other cat- on the field by the road a bit from home. I stopped the car and opened the window and said "Hi there!".  I'm such a cat-dork, I know.
He did answer with a long Meooow though. But that thing when you knock on the window and wave to your cats when you see them outside that means you're even more dorky does work because if they see wacing they come back in. Hah!)

I've -slowy, with baby steps - started my plant projects for the coming seasons. Re-potting and planting. Read about this "plant a tomato slice" way of growing tomatoes; let's see how it goes!

 Plant plate symmetry.

And I've bought us a small lemon tree that smells heavenly. Now we can watch it wither and die.*

*) Because that is eventually how this will go -  every fancier, expensive plant, especially the mediterranean ones,  I've ever had has died sooner or later. I am trying though, so let's cross our fingers and hope this one will make it...

BLUE BROWN AND BLACK CATS

 Posing without cat.

 Posing next to cat.

 Posing surrounded by cats.

Posing with cat.

Or, cat posing with me, acually.

My sweater is from King Louie, the wool skirt vintage and the shoes from Next from some years back.

CHESS

It's crazy cold outside. The cats are sleeping on the windowsills, as they tend to do this time of year, enjoying the warm air from the radiators. And Dag and I are playing chess!

We have a chess game that's always on the table and he has been eager to learn how to play. (Mainly to get a reason to be allowed to touch the pieces I think...) So we have been playing a little bit, showing him how the pieces move and the idea of the game at large. Everything was fine, eating some soldiers from one another and so on, until I, trying to show him how it goes in the game (parenting price of the year!), took his horse and he cried for an hour.

But then he wanted to play again. And again. "You can eat my towers but don't touch the horses" he says, constantly keeping one finger on his king just in case.

MINT GREEN, WINE RED AND KITTIES

When it's dark and grey outside I easily tend to wrap myself in a lot of black but the opposite can be quite soothing for the eye as well, strong colours in the middle of all desaturation around.

Lately I have been living with such a schedule and activities that I don't really get around using any of my "normal" clothes anylonger. It's most often just studiowear. Reminds me of when I was studying my first year of painting and I used to sew lots of clothes to myself that I also never really -well other than at goa parties - got to wear. (With no internet back then like now so nowhere to show them off! hastag: backinthedays. Or something...)  We just painted all day long at school and I'd wear an old bathrobe from the seventies with a long zipper and mushrooms on it (well it was actually a pretty cool bathrobe) to cover  my clothes and then after school I'd work in the harbour in work wear.

But ta-da! I just blend in my studio wear with my regular way for the in between moments!
With a kitty romper under my skirt.
Also, kitty rompers make grey November days a litle bit better.

The kitty romper is from Coquetry Clothing. The shoes are those water proof ones from Melissa.
I have to say though, that the jacket,m as lovely as the colour may be, is made from such a wool blend that makes the texture look totally awful after less than two months of wear. Booh.

Also, as I mentioned the studio, all our spring classes are now 5% off until Christmas with the code JOULU5! Shopping shopping from our webstore!

THE THIRD WEEKEND OF NOVEMBER; THE FIRST SNOW

Autumn is chancing into winter and it's dark in the afternoon here already. Just like it should at this time of year - the time to take out all extra light and light candles! And drink lots and lots of glögg.
(The cats get to demonstrate the cosing-and-candeling-it-up.)

Today the first snow of the year fell.

And so did it on this weekend seven years ago too. I was out with our music-quiz team glöggging about on Satruday evening wearing a big beige checked skirt and my red shiny heels. It started to snow and I had to walk on my toes. And then later that night I met a man who I would come to marry two and a half years later.

BLACK CATS EVERYWHERE

My youngest sister gave me a set of Polkka Jam pastel cat prints for my birthday (she has a history of giving me cat-tings) that I now put up in the kitchen. I've always liked Polkka Jam's prints and I had always thought of putting something on that wall so these came in handy.


The theme of the prints also serves as a nod to our other kitchen, the one in the farm house, with the rugs and wood stove and so on.

And to the cats of course. But that does not even need to be mentioned.