my 2012

I have, for many years, round up my year by answering some questions in this age old questionaire from who knows where. It's been a fun way to take stock of the year that has passed. I thought it would be fun to share it with you here. What do you say, is there anything that surprises you about me?

1. What did you do in 2012 that you'd never done before?
Apply for a learner’s permit to finally take my driver’s license

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Didn’t make any for 2012 - did make one for 2013, but it’s a secret

3. What countries did you visit?
Denmark, Germany, Italy



4. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
Stress free life, interest in exercise

5. What day from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The day I gave notice to end my contract with JessicaSprague.com

6. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Listening to my body and mind saying SLOW DOWN

7. What was your biggest failure?
Having a body and mind needing said slow down

8. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had stomach issues for most of spring and early summer due to stress, neck and shoulder pain throughout the year, my usual migraines

9. What was the best thing you bought?
A new bed and headboard

 

10. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Mr. Z had me screaming quite a few times during the year. This was unbelievable

11. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Swedish right wing racists

12. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Visiting Rome, seeing Michael Bublé, getting a new bed, gifts on my birthday and Christmas

13. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Running to "Give Me Everything" by Pitbull feels like classic 2012

1. Linked In Friendship
   
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4. 샌즈카지노
  

14. What do you wish you'd done more of?
See friends and family, take photos, go on holiday, and drink champagne

15. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Work, worry

16. How did you spend Christmas?
With my beloved family, eating, laughing, taking it easy

 

17. What was your favorite TV program?
Football (soccer), Sherlock, Big Bang Theory, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

18. What was the best book you read?
The Hunger Games trilogy

19. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Not sure I discovered anything new that grabbed me

20. What did you want and get?
Love from my friends and family, a raise, beautiful things on my wish list

21 What did you want and not get?
To win the lottery

22. What was your favorite film of this year?
Batman Rises

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I celebrated early with the husband, I turned 38

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Winning so much money that I could do whatever I fancied every day for the rest of my life

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
Look as good as you can for as little money and effort as possible



26. What kept you sane?
The husband


27. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Jamie Oliver, Michael Bublé

28. What political issue stirred you the most?
I guess it is all encompassed under the “human rights” umbrella – racism and sexism especially

29. Who did you miss?
Friends who are too far away to see, and who I didn’t have time to see

30. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012
You’re just a girl, with ambitions larger than your body and mind can handle, and that is ok

interlude

After almost three days with a killer migraine I needed something to bring a smile to my face. This did the trick.



Now, carry on  ...

just a little note

I know I have been MIA for a while here. I never meant to leave y'all hanging. I just hit a huge mother of a wall and had to remove myself from a number of stress factors in my life. If I am sparse here for a week or so, I ask for your understanding, and for cutting me some slack. I just need to rest up for a bit.

Lots of love to you all!

new52 | a hairy situation + birhtday celebrations

Alright, two weeks to cover in this post! The week before last I was determined to learn how to make a French braid. I have never been able to get it right before but lately I have been quite tired of ust keeping my hair hanging straight or in a pony tail. I had about as much success with this as with the sock curls the other week, but I kept going until I thought my arms were going to fall off. The result? Messy, loose, but French. Not the prettiest, but there it is.



Of course, I also cooked that week, and that was a better success than making hairdos.

I had on my list of things to do this year to celebrate my birthday with champagne and a beauty treatment. Of course, I've had champagne before, as well as many a beauty treatments (lord knows they are needed), just not ever on the same day, and never on my birthday. So I made an appointment for a haircut and had a nice relaxing time when she washed my hair and massaged my scalp and then made my hair look all soft and pretty. When I got home we sat outside in the garden and enjoyed a really nice Taittinger before digging into the crayfish.

This is me looking dorky (pre haircut) during lunch courtesy of the husband.

A faves list

I follow music star Robbie Williams on Facebook, and the other day he linked to a blogpost of his listing a few faves. I was inspired to do the same and decided a layout would be fitting. Now, I had to change a few of the questions out; I wear neither boxers nor briefs, which he had on his list, LOL!



Supplies: Modernist Elements Pack, Indulgence Elements Pack, Meet & Greet Elements Pack, Framed Elements Pack, Charmed Alpha, Glassy Alpha all by In the Making Design. Papers from a kit coming soon. Staple by Vinnie Pearce. Rockwell, Century Gothic, and Caffeine fonts. Scraplift of Pinterest layout by Starlite 9711.

One huge mutha of a new thing

Disclaimer: This post is very personal and serious. If you are not into that and purely came here for digi scrap or photography (thank you for that by the way), then please stop reading here and come back tomorrow.

I'm not quite sure how to write about this one. Part of me really don't want to because it's really huge for me, and very private, and there is so much riding on it that I kind of feel like I need to keep it to  myself for a while. On the other hand, I really want it documented just because it is exactly what this whole project is about; trying something new and hopefully becoming a better person in the process.

Now, for most of my life I have dealt with having major performance anxiety. There is something inside of me, a negative and demanding monster, that takes over and lures me into thinking that everything I do needs to be "perfect". It tells me that failure is the worst thing that could ever happen, and that unless I give it my all (an a little more) I will surely fail.

After so many years with this, and having inevitably failed at more than one thing in my life, this monster has made me think of myself as a person of lesser value - like I'm not good enough no matter what I'm doing -  and this in turn makes me try even harder to be "perfect" so that others won't notice what a crappy person I really am and now I'm kind of stuck in Catch 22.

Crazy? Yeah, she's real gone!

So, of course, this isn't a good way to live. It's certainly not a good way to treat myself. So I decided to do something about it and right now I feel like it doesn't matter if I don't do one single other new thing this year as long as I can pull this thing off. So this week was my kick off to treat myself better. Let's keep it at that for now.

So there you have it. The raw, the ugly, the truth. Next week will be super shallow, I promise! :)

There's no I in P52

Well, not exactly, I was in the photo of the bouncy castle a few weeks back. But so far this year there hasn't been a portrait of me. I had this discussion last year too. I don't particularly like being photographed, and I don't particularly like looking at myself. But I do understand that there needs to be pictures of me in a book about our lives. So when the husband took this photo of me in our garden on Thursday I felt it was decent enough to be the photo of the week.

Weekend pixels

I shot a bunch of photos over the weekend and some of them really caught my eye. They're not really anything fantastic, but they convey that feeling of relaxation. What can I say, I just like them.











Um, what's up with me and the food/drink motif?

Something about me

I created a layout about myself. I don't do that often enough I think. These list type of layouts are easy to do because there doesn't have to be much effort put into the journaling and they give a little glimpse of my life right now.


Go here for full credits

The layout features an upcoming paper pack. Be on the look out! :)

[insert title here]

"If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), " ... Am I really an artist?" chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death."

- Steven Pressfield's The War of Art                             

More house love

I had some comments on the husband's painting which made me happy. I am really so proud of his talent. So much that all of our art in the house, apart from my photography and a few framed scrapbook papers (you'll see them soon), is his original art. I really like the idea of putting nothing but our own creations on our walls. So if you see a painting in any of the pics, it's his. :) There was one in the dining area pic and a few coming in this post as well.

Guest lounge whisky room


1. The sofa bed folds out to sleep two. It's the perfect solution in a tiny room. We don't have guests stay over every week exactly which means that it would be a total waste to have  this room decked out as a proper bedroom. This way we can lounge in here, listen to music and read, and be able to use the room ourselves.
2. The round, red, soft rug was bought when we bought our last home many (seven) years ago. It still looks brand new, it is still a pain to hoover, and I still love it as much as when I saw it the first time. Red usually isn't a huge favourite for me but because of this rug red is the only colour in our house that isn't a neutral. Go figure.
3. The wall hung cabinets hold the husband's whisky collection and various other spirits. They are narrow which is perfect in this space and they look sleek and clean. It's also much easier to clean the room with them being off the floor.



4. The "Inferno" painting. The red is much stronger in real life than in this picture. I love lying in the sofa bed staring at it. I think it looks like flowing lava. I also like that you can see the photo wall in the hallway outside of the room from that same position.

Bedroom


1. General design and colour scheme in this room is my absolute fave. This is actually my favourite room in the house. We wanted to create a luxurious, boutique hotel style look for the bedroom and we also wanted to bring with us the colour scheme from our last place. I am very pleased with the look. Everything in here is white, a shade of grey, or silver. It means it's very calm and serene and also very sophisticated and classy. The one thing that bugs the heck out of me is that the super cool silver ceiling (that was a total pain to paint) had to be painted over after the second  year inspection (all new houses have to be inspected after two years and the builder has to fix whatever problems are found) stated that there were too many surface cracks in the ceilings. Of course they restored the ceiling to its original state which was white. Two years later I still haven't gotten round to getting the silver back up there. But you can see what it looked like here.
2. The wallpaper. I just love love love this design. We spent weeks looking for the right one and had a few quite heated discussions in the shop but it was so worth it. I don't think we could have found a better match.



1. We found the frames on sale at IKEA and put scrapbook papers in them and had super nice art for almost no money at all. I really like the fact that they aren't hung but rather just leaned against the wall. It's a huge pain to dust but I'll take it. Now, I have tried very hard to find as practical solutions as possible throughout the house, and I think the fact that we like modern and no fuss design helps that, but sometimes surface needs to go before practicality.
2. The stools are perfect for putting clothes on at the end of the day if we feel we're going to use them again the next day. They can also be used as emergency seating should we have too many guests over at the same time, lol. I also really like the rough wool with the ultra modern design. I think it's a great combination.



1, Painting! The organic shapes and the soft variations of whites and greys is what gets me every time. Waking up to see this painting makes me feel happy. I think it's the energy and movement.
2. Telly. I have to say that I strongly disagree with people who say that you shouldn't have a TV in the bedroom.
3. Granted white furniture in a bedroom means you're setting yourself up for a lot of dusting, but I love this cabinet. I think it is super pretty and I love the storage it offers. I keep my wedding and decorating magazines here.
I'm not going to share the office/dressing room combo again. If you want to see what it looks like you can read this post. It still looks the same and I still love the same things.

The laundry


1. Ok, first off, are there things to love in a laundry room? It's just a work room after all. But yes. There are indeed things to love about a laundry room. I love the tiled floor. It means we can hang really wet stuff up to dry without worrying about the floor being ruined. It also means it's easy to clean. And I like the tiles. I think the rough look is really nice combined with stark white (I like it so much that I have the same in my bathroom).
2. The sheer size of the room (which I also love as it means it's actually possible to be in there and do stuff) means there is ample room for many cabinets and counter space. I love that I can use all that counter space for folding laundry. It's also used as a changing table when "our" babies come over for visits.

We had plans to paint that left wall with some cool design. After four years we still haven't been able to decide what we want so it's still white. It doesn't bother me because as I said I like the contrast of the grafite grey and the white. But one day we might come up with something and actually do it.

Alright. So that's it. Our home and what I love about it. It isn't spectacular with lots of expensive design stuff. That's kind of typical of us. We get regular cheap stuff from IKEA and we make it work by putting it together in a personal style. I was once told that my style is post mod Euro trash IKEA style by someone on a wedding forum online. It had me laughing because even though she said it in a derogatory way it really isn't a problem at all for me. We don't own one single thing that is worth much but it all means the world to us. I think that is what I love the most about our home in the end.

We do have two bathrooms that I won't share even though there are plenty of things to love in there (like a shower curtain with ruffles) because I'm feeling iffy about sharing bathrooms on the internets. We also have two closets but those won't be shared either. If you ever saw Monica's closet of crazy in Friends you will understand why! LOL!

Now, do you have things you love in your house? I would love to see if you want to share!

The house love continues

The house is an open plan house which I really love. I love the large kitchen/dining/living area. Not only does it mean that the house is very light and airy, but it is also perfect for communicating. Even when it's just the two of us we can still talk to eachother when the husband is cooking and I'm watching telly in the sofa. Of course, the large open area is perfect for entertaining.

The dining area


1. Our large table that folds out to seat twelve is a complete life saver when we have many guests. The padded chairs are super comfy which means that long meals are no problem at all.
2. The big windows facing both west and south ensure that the house is flooded with light. The floor to ceiling windows ar,e granted, a pain to clean but I can live with them being dirty. It's not going to kill me.
3. The vicinity to the kitchen is optimal when having sit down dinners. Serving is a breeze and the island can be used as a buffé.
 
Living area

1. The wallpaper on that one wall is very clever. The swirly pattern is a golden/bronze metallic that changes depending on the light. From some angles and in some lights it isn't even visible and then during other parts of the day and from other angles it stands out in a 3D like effect.
2. The photo wall is perfect for displaying my photography. We change the photos out every now and then. Mostly then actually. We've changed them out twice since we moved in. I still stop and look a the photos sometimes when I walk past.
3. The oak parquet flooring is a beautiful warm honey colour that seems to get only more beautiful with time. It kind of sucks that it's so soft because there are already knicks and marks in it but I guess I just have to suck it up and accept that it's part of every day life.



1. Our large brown leather sofas are perfect for watching films and falling asleep. We chose them not only for their sharp look but also because they are so comfy lying in. They are also wide enough that we can lie together in one.
2. The stools offer valuable storage as well as extra seating. They hold toys for our younger guests and cooking magazines.
3. The thick blanket is perfect for chilly winter nights. My sister in law gave it to me for Christmas a few years ago and the only chance for someone else to use it is to claim it when I'm not at home.



1. The big mirror reflects the whole living area and makes the room look much bigger than it is (as if that is needed). I also love the rough edge of the frame.
2. The books are placed colourized rather than alphabetized because I can't stand the cluttered look of books in different colours next to eachother. The look is also broken up and lightened by the white doors and the glass bowl. I had to put away 75% of my books (which was already halved by a previous weeding) when we bought this shelf. It hurt but surface proved more important than being intellectual. How shallow of me, lol!
3. The lamp shaped like a bonsai tree is a favourite of mine. It has a bunch of tiny lights that makes the lamp look like a floating tree at night. It's difficult to explain but it's just gorgeous.
4. The big vase holds wine corks. Our plan is to fill that bugger. I'm realizing it will take a while since the little sliver of a layer is the product of about eight months worth of drinking. But it looks cool I think.



1. The suede panel curtains are sleek and luxurious at the same time. I am so not a frilly person (which might not come as a surprise to you at all, lol) and these are the perfect match for me.
2. The large glass table with storage underneath holds a lot of books and all our techie gadgets but still manages to look clean and tidy. The glass gets dusty quickly but is super easy to clean with some glass polish and a paper towel. I will cry when the glass gets so scratched that we have to replace the table.
3. The candle holder on the wall was purchased at an outlet and looked like crap. It was black and the glass cups to hold the tea lights were so tacky. But I spray painted it silver and changed the cups out and all of a sudden it was elegant and pretty. I love the look of the candles glowing on the wall when we light them.

Alright that's about 50% of the house covered. Next house post will cover the bedrooms.

Oh, and I also created a layout!


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Supplies: Meet & Greet Paper Pack and Elements Pack, Moments Elements Pack, It's a Start Templates 5 (coming soon) all by In the Making Design.
Staples by Vinnie Pierce.
Fonts are Century Gothic and Another Typewriter.
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Serious house love

We moved into our house about four and a half years ago and it's been a love story from the start. I adore the comfort and simple elegance of our home. Having grown up and lived all my life in apartments I never thought for a minute that I would be a "house person" at all but I am feeling like I'm in the absolute right place in a way that I have never felt before. I can only chalk it down to it being the perfect match. Of course, had I won millions and millions on the lottery I would probably be in a bigger and more spectacular place, but let's live in reality here, lol.

So despite all this love and lah di dah, I think we all go through bouts of just plain tired. I do when we haven't had time to clean and keep the house tidy. Those are the times when I feel like just packing up and staying in a perfect hotel. If I happen to have spent time perusing Pinterst at the same time I feel like so even more. The other week was such a time and guess what I did to get out of the funk? Well, let me tell you. I really like this idea. Here's what I did. I whipped the camera out and shot a bunch of photos of all the rooms in the house and once I had loaded them in I listed things I really, really like of each room. After having gone through them all I felt quite differently about our home.

Please allow me to share with you! Things I love about our home!
(ok, brace yourselves , I will have to break this up into several posts because I discovered I love a lot)

The entry


1. The granite floor is so easy to clean and the rough surface hides dirt quite well which means we don't have to mop it all the time.
2. The sliding glass doors to the wardrobe makes the space seem bigger and reflects a lot of light from the windows in the kitchen (off the left edge of this photo).
3. The huge painting, that the husband painted when we had just moved in especially for that wall, is absolutely stunning and exactly our style.
4. The three windows in the entrance door lets even more light through which means we have ligh coming in from all four sides of our house.



1. The bucket with the fluffy slippers for guests is a popular feature of the entry. It was one of the first ideas I had when we signed the contract to build.
2. The hand written text (by me) on the wall says: "Come as you are, leave as you became". It encompasses the feeling of freedom and relaxation that I want guests to feel when they come to visit us.
3. The photos on the wall were taken with our first DSLR and back when we were completely clueless when it came to photography. But they represent a beginning of a lifestyle - one as a photographer (not professionally of course but I do consider myself a photographer).

The kitchen


1. We chose to go with aluminum doors for the fridge/freezer instead of stainless steel. This is great because finger prints and smudges are much less of a problem. It meant that we had to have two towers with a fridge/freezer combo (they didn't have one large frigde and one large freezer) which we thought would be a problem at first. It ended up being a huge plus though. We don't use the right freezer, which means less using less energy, and we can use one fridge entirely for drinks (wine, beer, soda and so on) which means we can have the temperature a little higher without it affecting the food.
2. The cutting board, cut from a solid wood counter top, covers the whole width of the island and this is perfect for a household where food is a huge priority. I was against it at first but the husband stood his ground and now I love it.
3. We eat most of our meals sitting beside eachother at the island. It feels relaxed and we get to be close to eachother. It's also a perfect place for me to sit and sip some wine on Friday nights when the husband is cooking.



1. The magnet rack of professional knives used to scare the heck out of me. Now that I have started cooking on my on I appreciate having the perfect knife available to me.
2. I don't drink coffee but I love the idea of the espresso machine. I love how metropolitan and Mediterranean it makes me feel owning one.
3. The sleek look of the the cabinets is perfect for a semi minimalist. I sometimes wish we had gone with white, and I think we will once it's time to redo the kitchen further down the road, but most days I'm quite ok with the look of our kitchen.

Alright, let me break it up here. I'll be back with the dining area and living room tomorrow.

One new thing at a time

First off, I just want to say that I've had some really lovely comments here on the blog and through email with regards to my review of 2010 and from the bottom of my heart; I thank you so very much. Sharing insecurities is a touchy subject I guess but I am glad I did because your messages to me have validated me and shown me that I'm not alone. So thank you all!

Now then, I said last week that I was tempted to try out New52 to challenge myself to grow as a person, and to have some fun on the way. Well I thought about it, and then some. I thought about what kind of new things I would like to try this year, how much of a challenge it would be, and how much guts it would take to do some of them. I came up with quite an impressive list. But reading and reviewing the list made me realize that many of them would be really difficult to document in a way that I could upload to a computer and do something with. And the OCD part of me just can't bear to not have all my ducks in a row, lol. OK, so what to do? Back to square one?

Actually no. I have decided to break the mold and not commit to a certain format, and to not document with photos that are to be compiled into a book, and  to not be disturbed by the fact that it is whatever it is - some weeks nothing, some weeks huge things that I can just keep within me, and some weeks photo ops that I can share here. I really want to do this to challenge myself and to hopefully look back at the end of the year and feel more positive about myself and my actions than I did looking back at 2010. With this in mind I have decided to keep the list off this blog for now. I might compare what I have done and share later on though.

Still with me? :)

One of the things on my list was to cook dinner for the husband once a month. It's no secret that cooking is something I do not do. Being married to a chef certainly has its perks. Fabulous food every day being the biggest one! But a drawback has been that my abilities in the kitchen have shrunk to stupid little things like boiling eggs. So in an effort to change that, and to spoil the husband a little, I will try take charge of the pots and pans at least twelve times this year.

So last night it was premiere night. Oh man I was nervous! I had planned the menu around the promise of champagne from the husband and the importance of easy to follow recipes. Did I make it through to the end without a melt down and without burning the place to the ground? Yes siree! I sure did.

(This is where I tell you to ignore that I wore no make up and my hair was a mess)






And the actual food, you ask? Yup, it was edible!
Salmon ceviche for starter


Green pea soup with bacon and ciabatta for main


Chocolate covered stawberries with Italian cookies for dessert


You won't believe how proud I was after this. I haven't cooked a full meal entirely on my own while the husband was actually in the house for ages and ages. So this will definitely happen again.

A real life story

Just have to share a little something from today!
On my way home from a business trip  I sat beside a guy on the train. We both had our computers up and were both working on graphic design (I had to take frequent breaks though because I get terrible motion sickness). It was like a little creative corner at our end of the train. Hee!

Only difference was:
1. He was a hot shot art director doing high end commercial work for a big firm, I was working on my own digi scrap designs.
2. He had a huge, shiny, new Macbook Pro, I worked on my four year old HP.
3. He was working on CS5 (PS and AI), I have CS3 PS but no AI.
waaaaah - inferior complex rearing its ugly head big time

But despite all this he moved one word (in Century Gothic font) back and forth on a red square for 45 minutes while I created four papers. I guess the lesson for me there was that even though I badly need upgrades on both hardware and software I can still rock the design world (in a small way of course).

We clean up nicely

My sister shot this of the husband and moi on Saturday before a wedding. I like it.

Profile changes

OK, so my neighbour commented on my profile the other day. He didn't think it was a good idea to say that I was a junkie, even if it was in regards to creating. So Rolf, my dear neighbour, I changed it up for you! LOL!

Soothing for the soul

Do you ever have days when you just don't feel like anything is going your way? Like you're simply not on top of the world?

Those are the days that you truly need one of these.


I sure needed one. And yes, it did sooth my soul.

In bad shape

You guys, I meant to post lots of eye candy for you today, as well as P52 for the week. But my bad hand (which I have tried to ignore for a few weeks) have turned into a bad arm and I am now fearing that if I don't rest it will have to be amputated. So with that, I apologize and hope that you will forgive me if I stay away for a few more days.

Oh, and if you missed my Buttons and Strips freebie during the (i)NSD celebration, it will go live in the shop tomorrow.

Love!

Week 17 of P52

So here we are again with the weekly photo for P52. And it's a different one this time. Last year there wasn't one single photo of me the whole year. This year ... well, let's just say that I'm not shooting for a book full of Linda pages, lol. But still, I am documenting our lives and I have to admit that I am very much a part of that. So, yeah, this week is a portrait of me. The husband took it. His settings were off but at least it's in focus and at least I look happy.

OK, enough said, here I am.