Winter is coming

I wonder what the Swedish army is looking for in the Stockholm archipelago. Well Sweden is one of the few countries in Europe that has not joined NATO, so we're pretty sure who has visited our waters uninvited....The world got just colder. 

After we decided not to throw a Halloween kids party, I was not sure if I would even have the time/strenght to decorate. But as the stores picked up things with lovely autumn feel I decorated a little bit. It actually didn't take long time. 

The game table is decorated in the mood of the Seventh Seal

The booklet under the glass dome is a biblical one with the title " The sin against the spirit".

 The bookshelf in the background is actually a curtain that I just had to get when I passed the shop window of Åhléns. It's perfect in my dark cosy livingroom.

I have spent most of my week in the sofa, watching the two Seasons of Hemlock Grove. Perfect to indulge some gore along with the recovery of a horrible flu that caught me in fever for five days. D-vitamins, bee-pollen, painkillers and warm tea id my arsenal of weapons.

The worst thing with this flu is that it has attacked my ability to think properly, it feels like when I was sick with depression and ptds. 

Another mini glassdome I recently bought. I know I'm a sucker for glass domes. The striped cloth is hiding a batch of applecider vinegar to be finished soon.

A few decorations at the kitchen shelf. The cone is a papercraft that was made the first autumn in this house.

We still harvest red paprikas from the three buckets I brought indoors before the frost.

Next week will be my last few days at the old job. What a relief and what an excitement (and huge performance anxiety) to start the new job. This will give me the opportunity to see if teaching really is something for me. 

How to find calm and silence, or at least trying to.

It has been an insane period and it's not over yet. I was asked to come and have some lectures earlier than supposed because they didn't have any teacher for my coming classes. I asked for permission to get leave of abscense at work to go teaching and got it. So I work at my old work a little more than half time, work as a teacher in math and technology half time and study half time. That means the woken hours evolve around work and studies only. There will be no time for social stuff for a while.

To calm down I light candles even at daytime. There's a lavender scented tea light in the glass and drying flower seeds on the counter and a few drying small onions. A candle and seed place.

To avoid noises (kids, tv, buzzing, tinnitus) I listen to background sounds like this playlist.

Or if I'm in for another mood

I can't listen to voices while reading therefore these kind of sounds are perfect and calming. 

We have a lovely autumn and I try to look up and enjoy the colours and falling leaves. I hope everything will be settled when next year arrives.

The last dragonfly of the year, saved from a cobweb. It look a bit ragged.