first night of hiatus in Sweden!

Hejsan! I've taken 2.5 months leave from work and am spending it in Stockholm. I planned to be there before Christmas, then when I found out The Soundtrack of Our Lives were playing on December 16, I knew I had to get there on time for that. TSOOL is one of my very favourite Swedish rock bands, and seeing them 3 times in 3 nights in 2007 kinda kick-started my interest in Sweden. Now I have a lovely Swedish boyfriend and am temporarily living in Stockholm! funny

 

Today is the 14th day of visit! I vowed to take it real easy for the first two weeks because I was pretty burned out, and it worked! I'm just about 100% relaxed now!

Don't Panic!

Yesterday was Towel Day, and Krissy's birthday!


Last summer the Young Swede and I went on a road trip. I was reading Hitchhiker's Guide so it was in the car and when we stopped in Ottawa to have lunch with Sienna, we passed Zaphod's, the nightclub at the end of the Universe!

I miss Christmas holiday, le sniff

Oy! New Year's Resolutions haven't really worked yet, so can I pretend tomorrow is the first day? I meant to start eating clean again after the Swede left, but he left lots of candy behind.

Polkagris:

And Snöre! I like kola and jordbgubb flavours:


Winter wonderland in western Quebec:

Vegan gingerbread:
The Team Canada mittens are quite the hit! I got a pair too, I love them!


Wheeee! My Mom *loves* her skidoos! And I always forget how fun it is til I get on board:

Cookie and Cupcake, the country cats who aren't allowed in the house:


Two people who are trying to remember how to skate! Ha, I haven't skated in *years* but it was so much fun and I didn't break any bones!

Oh Mom .... I hope the thieves in town can't read English, or know what rubber boots are:


Spock is my co-pilot!


Crafts I made at the Swedish Christmas Fair:

Screenprinting-on-paper workshop I went to with Krissy, I made the Christmas ball with the heart:

Christmas at the bowling alley:

I made other crafts too, and did a bit of decorating at my place even though we were leaving for Christmas. Better go floss my teeth after all that candy!

nerdy Swedish crafts in San Francisco

While I was in San Francisco there was an Etsy labs event at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, connected to the Open Source Embroidery exhibit. I put it on my list of things I really wanted to do in our short time there, and yay, we made it happen! I spend a lot of time at etsy.com, so I knew I'd like something organized by Etsy people.

We got to the entrance and behind the desk there was this knitted poster:


We were looking at it with squinty eyes and the woman working there said "you won't be able to read it, it's in Swedish." ha ha haaaaa, because my guy is Swedish. He didn't get it because it is a knitting pattern, knit into the ..... knitting! I almost had it figured out before she said that.

Turns out that the exhibit came from Sweden! It was mixing fibre arts with technology. Here's a quilt of text messages embroidered onto different fabrics. The texts are in English, Swedish, Norwegian and Spanish:

So the picture quality isn't great, but I like them so I can practice. I like to read stuff that Swedish people write casually, because that helps me learn how they really speak, which I don't really get in my workbooks.

There was also an embroidered motherboard:

An HTML colour quilt, it was spectacular:

A chair you could embroider on while sitting in it, listening to the iPod woven into the armrest:

And other cute textile art, like this:

California Highway 1, suburban LA and Hermosa B

Drove the fantastic highway between San Francisco and LA. It really is as gorgeous as they say. I miss it! I hope to spend more time at the ocean next year, or at least a lake or river. Water is so gorgeous.

Of course we had to take off our shoes!

November and they can play volleyball in bathing suits!

mmmmm veggie burger at beach-side pub, with avovado: