HOME(S)

Or, why we have two.


Sometimes it may seem confusing posting pictures and stories of two kitchens and two different bedroms, from two homes. Where do I-we- really live?

Well, we live both in the apartment uptown in the city, and out on the farm. For me the city home has been my main home, for my husband the farm.


It is not uncommon over here to have a "summer house" or country/weekend cabin, either owned or rented for the summer, often shared within the family trough generation(sisters, parents, uncles aunts and cousins and so on), and often rather plain and simple without running water. Like my family's place in the archipelago, bought in the 1930's, which does not even have electricity, or the small cabin from my grandmother's side. But the farm house is not like that.



Even though we tend to stay out on the farm during the weekends and holidays and practically the whole summer, it's not what one would call a leisure or vacataion house or a weekend home. My husband grew up on the farm and was living there when we met. He now runs the farm with his brother, who live in another house on the premises. So there is a lot of work involved, and Eddi often goes out to the farm after work to work some more, even when we stay in the city.

The farm is about (a little less than) an hour away from town, so it's possible to live there and work in the city.

But why do we then have the flat in town? It of course results in a double set of bills. And it can be a bit annoying dragging  kids and cats andthings between two places. And as I sometimes tend to joke, hard to keep plants alive in two homes.

Well, there area lot of things to it,  but in short it has been the most -and only- practical solution. Eddi's two older boys, now in school and high school,  live with us every second week and their mother lived in the city so they went to school there. Our flat is close to their school, my studio and Eddi's work. And while I was working from 5:30 in the morning or until night in the harbour the shorter the way to work the better.


We rent the flat from my grandmother and after I sold my old small flat downtown we renovated it before we moved in. It's in the same part of town where I grew up in (so we both have ended up in our childhood homes, sort of).


We have been renovating and renewing the farmhouse too, as you know. And as it tends to be with big old houses it is something of a never-ending process, and there is still a lot to do. Like open up the roof and take out some more windows so we can get a few rooms more and more use of the upstairs. And open the floor down to the ground in another room downstairs before it can be renewed...

As we have been renovating the house on the farm we have also been staying there more.  One day we will move there out permanently, as keeping two places and going back and forth is not the most economic solution.  But if that is sooner or later is yet to see, now it's one week at a time.

And well, one week at at time is actually literal, as from the start of this year, with a very short notice - as everything tends to be so from that behalf- the boys moved with their mother (for every second week still) to a small town west of the farm, and now go to school in the countryside. So from now on, for now, we will basically live every second week out on the farm and every second in the city.

Bedside in the city. (this is my most pinned and shared image btw. Sadly not the most credited one...)

THAT TIME OF THE YEAR

It's been that time of he year again.
Bokkeeping time.

Such a dreaded period - and I don't even do the business' books myself, just organise and gather it all for our accountant, but that itself is a challenge. (This here is halfway trough already, the starting point was much less pretty.) And it would of course be less of a challenge would I be nicer to myself during the year  and not leave it all for the future January-me to sort out ; I always plan an improvement for the year to come, to be more organised, and that plan is the same year in and year out, but there is still just a big messy pile of papers and a box stuffed with receipts (not to mention the print-list) waiting for me each and every new January. Are there really people out there who get this done nice and clean every month? (And yes yes I know there is, somewhere...) It always makes me strangely content to hear others who are not among those people complain about the same thing.

Well, I got it done now, and hopefully this was the last year I went trough this mess - because I can't change the world still can and now we got ourselves a phone app that will do a lot of the work for us! Yey for that!

BLUEx2, RED AND BLACK

Soft blue and red are one of my favorite combinations.

After a long wait and scouting for a cardigan that would suit everything (or close to it) and not get floppy right away I landed for this baby blue one. It's the Paloma cardigan from Hellbunny that a lot of you recommended me.

The striped knitted top is from King Louie.

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW.

Or well, the other night actually, as I fell asleep before I posted.

Came home very tired and happy after a long weekend and treated myself with some organic cold cava and chocolate -

because, as some of you know (if you follow my FB page), I have started studying towards becoming a mat pilates instructor! The first very intensive but also rewarding weekend behind me now.

 Made myself a hot long bubbly bath, which my body I had been longing for the whole weekend after some 16 hours of working it.

Altough, a nice relaxing bath and moments of solitude do not remain relaxing and alone for that long. But it doesn't matter.

BABY BLUE MIMMIS

Because it's snowy and wet outside and we are in the middle of winter I naturally got myself a pair of summer shoes!


Well, thinking in advance, thinking in advance.


I had been eyeing these for some time already and now that they were on super-duper sale I decided to strike and be prepared for blue skies, dry streets and a warm breeze, come the day. I have another pair of high heeled clogs that are very comfy and they will last a lifetime if properly taken care of. And you can wear them to the playground sandbox too.


Pupuppi-duu.

My mind is also set on a pair of red clog sandals for summer. And then I will never need to get another pair of shoes again. (Well, sort of.)

(Most clogs I've tried are true to size; so are these. I go for the smaller size since I am often in between.)

PASTEL POP!

The Itty-Bitty Tease Cabaret anno 2015! We are pairing up with Lady Laverna and miss Amber Storm this year resulting in being, once again, a troupe of five. (And we are doing something totally different for this year's festival!)

We haven't actually had a mutual group shoot in two years, and due to shitloads of work and different schedules we got ourselves into a hurry to get a something promo picture of the five of us taken. But we managed to do  a quick shoot ourselves at our studio just before Christmas. Even though it really is no photo studio, we have done quite many shoots over at our workspace in the end; it has rendered itself very useful in many ways...
This time, we went for pastel-pop-candy-fluff-crazy.


And that we are.
Photos and post-production by me*.

*) Altough I would save me some time would we just iron the drapes ourselves instead of doing so in Photoshop... For the next time then!

COLOURS VS. GREY

Just as I blogged about what a lovely winter we had going on it started raining and I got my much hated wet grey mush all over instead.


But hey, at least I got a colourful nice dress!

(Which also is soft and stretchy = win. From King Louie. )

ICE CREAM GORE

The worst and saddest story about ice cream you'll ever see.
by Steve Cutts.

SEWING FOR TWO

Sometimes I manage to surprise even myself with the amount of things I am able to get done at the same time. Or, in some (most) cases; the amount of things I manage to do when postponing something else that I actually should be doing.

So because organising my paperwork for my bookkeeper brings out the creative need in me instead, I sew a slipover for Dag -

A slipover pretty much the only thing I can come up with to sew him "just like that" as he is not a little girl I can sew dresses for  -he could have worn those kind of mini muumu-style baby/toddler dresses when he was smaller if I'd made him but I think he's beginning to be to old for such. So slipovers it shall be!

I made this for winter out of a warm stretchy soft fabric. Might try to give a pair of (simple) pants for him a go too!

As I was on it I also sew myself a skirt! I always had this cute-and-stupid idea of making matching mom-girl dresses if I had a girl but I can do it like this instead!


It is something of a 1/4-circle skirt -normally I always measure and do the circle-skirt maths, but because I was kind of in a hurry (=wanted to wear it straight away) and since the fabric is very stretchy and easy, I just measured it on me from one corner; how much I needed to get it to cover my behind. Then I sat down and cut the quarter of a circle straight on the fabric. I sew it together in the back and added a two small darts in the front and two in the back for a slimmer fit, and then attached a thick waistband afterwards.


I also added suspenders.


The suspenders can be attached or removed with small hooks for variation.


And now we are adorably silly and matching!

The fabric is from Eurokangas and my knit top is from KingLouie, shoes Frollein von Sofa. I've worn them all Christmas whenever we went somewhere.

WHAT IS NOW CALLED LAST YEAR

And so yet another year has gone by.

Altough, a year does go by every day and every second, and I am not one of those starting a new life each and every first of January (it’s going to be real crowded at the gym the following weeks, I know).  But as everything is always rounded up around the change of the calendar year, so do I. 

Many might have noticed I did been less blogging during the second half of the year;, I had a lot on my mind that took up time but mainly I was very caught up with work, which, as most of you know, takes time, especially when you do not do a nine-to-five but a wherever whenever combined with a small child. And over here, on the blog, I have tried to prefer quality over quantity which leaves some blanks every now and then.

Last year had lots of ups and downs,  more of the later, but I - apart from a few exceptions - seldom go into those here; this is mainly a space for the good stuff. So here's a little well-compressed lookback on 2014.

So - during 2014 I worked a lot. On stage and behind it, coaching students, making costumes, teaching dance clasees  and travelling back and forth performing trough the country.

There will be lots of work for next year too, and lots of new things! But we'll get back to those when the time comes, some sooner, some later.

Not the most fashion-orientated period of my life going on -I feel I never have anything suitable to wear for most of the time as I do so many different things during the day. But I did do many wearable diy’s and clothing projects.

Thought a lot about hair and then went for it; cut my bangs back last spring.

And -apparently - cooked mainly raw food. (Altough now after Christmas is certainly does not feel like that...)

  

And Dag grew bigger, like children tend to do. I think he looks all the same but then I look at photos of him from last winter and spring and see the change and how fast it in fact goes when they are small.

And the seasons keeps on changing and time flies. It will be warm and summer again in no time! 

Next year's New Years-post is just around the corner, believe me. But I'm not going to be all too 2016 yet, let's give 2015 a go first. And a great go it shall be!