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What more do you need than

a cozy fire

hearty German food, like in Schnitzel with Schwarzwurzeln in wine sauce and

a Cinnamon kiss.

After a wonderful Friday evening with interesting new wines, yummy Italian goodies, a fantastic Tiramisu and great conversations with friends we started slowly into our Saturday.
I love lazy Saturday mornings with a Café au Lait, croissants and some fruit. Can’t imagine anything better .

We then felt like doing a little shopping at the Outlet Center but unfortunately didn’t find anything. Not even remotely It was a grey and rainy afternoon, that was best spent in front of the TV anyway. ”North and South” and then a whole lot of Trash TV at it’s finest!

Come dinner time, we decided to make a nice porcini risotto. I had this Risotto Milanese for the first time at my friend’s place and it has developed into one of my favourite (Risotto) recipes ever since!

Now it’s back to the couch. During the dark season I really miss all the cozy game evenings we used to have (like recently in England). I think we should invite some friends over for a board game night next weekend. It’s about time to take that up again.

Tomorrow we will see if we can get some fresh air. The weather really sucks at the moment, but maybe we are lucky. They are putting on the Christmas lights all over town and at the harbour, so it should be nice to take walk. We also got a book with loads and loads of “2 for 1″ entertainment and restaurant coupons that we can put into use.

I’m so exhausted!

Tonight we are invited to a wine tasting of Italian wines at a friend’s house and were therefore going to leave the car at home. Unfortunately my colleague, that was going to give us a ride, called this morning to tell me she was sick. Poor girl – being sick and then having to call people and organize the logistics at 7 am! Hope she’s feeling better now!

To be able to take the bus and still arrive in a reasonable time, I would have needed to have gotten up an hour earlier though. That’s how well our public transport works! But I digress, it’s a whole different post…

After spending 15 useless minutes at the computer to look for solutions, we decided to take the car anyway and take it home before the wine tasting.

So I went in to work, did some emergency stuff and then headed to a seminar at University. I arrived being already totally exhausted. 2 hours later I got back to work, where everything was a bit chaotic with 3 people being sick, 1 on vacation and all the project managers and their assistants just getting back from their seminar. The whole day seemed to fly by with us just running around in circles and stop water coming in from all kinds of different holes.

After work we had to rush back home to leave the car and then hop on the bus to go to the wine tasting. I have been looking forward to that evening so much, but at the moment it feels like I will be falling asleep there on the spot!

Have a relaxing weekend everyone!

While my husband is on a business dinner, I intend to make myself a really nice evening at home. I just had Pellkartoffeln with sour- creme (due to lack of Kräuterquark in Sweden) for dinner – a dish that I love but  J doesn’t like at all. I’ve got the fire going and lit up some candles; a cup of tea is also ready. Now on to an evening on the couch with one of my favourite movies “Walk the line”.  Yeah and then it’s almost weekend! I really love this pre-weekend feeling on Thursdays!

Inspired by San - and yes a little inspiration is SO welcome in these NaBloPoMo days- I will give you a little insight in a typical work day of mine today.

6:00 – 6:30 am: the alarm goes off. Last year I got one of those light alarms for Christmas and I have to say I absolutely LOVE it! At 6:00 the light goes on and gets stronger and stronger during a period of half an hour. After that the birds start singing. I cuddle up in bed for 15 more minutes – YES I am BAD at getting up!

6:45 am: I’m taking a LONG shower. Last month my old shower broke and we then installed one of those large waterfall showers and they are so niiice! I put on some make up,  blow dry mair hair and get dressed.

7:10 am: I go downstairs and prepare the coffee, if J hasn’t done that yet. YES, I need my morning coffee! Most of the time I have a bowl of all bran and a banana for breakfast, sometimes bread or a croissant.

7:40 am: I’m brushing my teeth and then J and I drive to work.

8:00 am: I get a cup of tea and start working. My tasks are very varying and include contacts to customers and suppliers, managing the surveys in regards to planning personnel, quality control, presentations, instructing extra workers and statistical calculations. There is also a lot of contact to the IT department.

10:00 am: Fika – that’s what the Swedes call their all-important, institutional coffee breaks during which I usually have a fruit. We talk about work related stuff but also pure nonsense. Often enough we have a good laugh!

10:15 am: I get back to work.

12:00 am: Lunch break. We usually cook 3,5 portions for dinner and bring left overs that we heat up in the microwave. Sometimes we also go out for lunch, but since that is fairly expensive we rather save that money and go for a really good meal every once in a while instead. Depending if there is a lot to do or not I may or may not take a full hour lunch break. When it’s nice weather we often take a walk in the forest.

12:15-1:00 pm: Back to work.

3:00 pm: Another fika!

3:15 pm: Back to work again.

5:00-6:00 pm: Officially the work day is over by 5:00 pm but mostly there is a little much to do for that. (Sometimes way too much). Anyway, often enough we are leaving before 6 pm. Sometimes we go grocery shopping on our way home, meet up with friends in town for dinner or go to the movies. Mostly we are heading straight home though.

6:30 pm: J and I take care of the laundry and cook dinner together. In the summer there sometimes also is some garden work to do.

7:15 pm: Dinner time

If we stay at home we usually watch TV,  read or surf the interwebs. We are also really trying to establish a routine of doing 15 minutes of yoga (and since Monday Shakti mat) before going to bed every day.

22:30 – 23:00 We brush our teeth and go to bed.

May I present my latest acquisition:

I LOVE this Shakti mat with its thousands of acupressure spikes. 20 minutes on it and you feel so relaxed – like new-born! It’s divine!

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With weather that mostly invites to hibernation and a constant blaaahhh feeling, I’m starting to dream about travelling. Dream about fleeing this grey, shitty weather. This stressful every day life!

On days like these, when all I’m longing for is sun and warmth, one of the first dream destinations coming to my mind would be Thailand.

Turquoise blue water, white sand, palm trees, yummy drinks and food, diving… all that combined with seeing a totally magnificent culture. Oh, how I wish I could be there right now… SO relaxing, SO awesome, SO the right place!

J and I would rent a little hut right by the beach. We would sleep in every day and then have a long brunch with fresh fruit like pineapple or mangoes.

We would spend  our days in a hammock, a book in one hand and an ice-cold drink in the other- and at the beach. Sometimes we would take a boat out to go diving. I can almost feel the warmth of the sun on my skin and totally envision all the colourful fish. In the evenings we would go out and try out the tasty local cuisine.

On some days we visit some of the cultural treasures of this beautiful country. Or how about riding on the back of an elephant through the jungle?

A vacation in Thailand would offer so many new exciting adventures!

Dreaming about travelling sure is a nice thing – especially on a grey november day. But unfortunately reality is catching up with me. Tomorrow it’s back to work to bring home those travel bucks!

So, what place tops your list of dream destinations and why?

This weekend we drove up to the in-laws in Värmland for the first time since last December.  Usually we went there every other month so you can imagine how bad we felt about not visiting in such a long time. Somehow there was always something getting in the way.

Anyway, my timing sucked still, since I’m feeling totally bad. You know, throat pain, pain in all joints, headache. Can’t really do much at all, I’m feeling so tired. I wonder if these are the common short-term side effects of the flu shot I got yesterday or if I’m getting sick from a flue for real? We’ll see if it gets worse. For now it’s back to the couch with a cup of tea.