My memory is on paper

My memory is made of teflon, it's a common disorder for people who are brain-workers. I forget meetings, reporting students on vacation, and all those small things I have to fix to make the world go round. A planner is essential for my daily life and I've concluded that google calendar doesn't work for me. 

To keep my stress level down, I use mini post it notes for "to do" tasks. I post them in my planner, and when I've finished each task I throw the notes away. I can also move the notes to another day if something more important comes up. That means I only have to focus on one day at a time, being present, carpe diem and shit like that...

The problem with prefabricated templates is that they sometimes doesn't fit your needs. My teachers planner worked just fine, but I thought it was a little bit boring and limiting. After some good advices from my sister in law who also is a teacher, I bought a planner from Simple stories in A5 size. I liked it because of the pockets, the dotted lining and the size. But the main thing is that the ring opener is making you able to personalize it more.

I bought mine from Skaparlusten. I can highly recommend any swedish people who likes stationery this shop, because I got my parcel within two days. And she called me the day after I put my order because one of the items were out of stock. I told her to change it with something that fitted the rest of my order and she sent me the clips and inserts for the planner. 

I wanted my week plan to look more like a schedule than the horizontal one that came with the planner. Publisher is an excellent office based programme that is easy to use, making templates. I kept mine simple because I'm supposed to alter it for every week.

If someone is interested, I have this template in pdf-format to send to you. Note that you print it on A4, divide the paper in half and make your own holes fitting your planner. Oh and if you like, I can change the days to english or change the fonts, easy peasy.

Our city has it's own pet, an owl

Some of you know that I love owls. The symbolize wisdom, mysticism, but also darkness. In old times the sound of a howling owl ment a bad omen. 100 years ago you recieved bounty for shooting them. Today this typical owl, the eagle owl has been rescued from being endangered but is still very sensitive.

Our city and the mine has a couple of eagle owls as official pets, they also represents our town in bigger sport events. The couple have their nest on a cliff at the mine and they also have their own website with a webcam.  (site also in english)

I haven't bothered about these owls, until now. Many have seen and heard it around the market place and one of the owls has found a perfect perch on top of the church. 

Every evening around 6 o'clock it sits on the cross and howls.

One of your tasks on saturday was to find the owl, because I've never heard it before. The citys facebook group is a good place to check for their current location. So at 17, it sat on the cross, we went there to find it empty. We went to the mine because someone posted shortly after that the owl and his fiance was there, we heard nothing. A man we met, had walked around the mine and didn't see or hear one, so we went to the supermarket to buy groceries. When we came back to the car after shopping, the owl was back on the cross. We went back and there it was. Ho hoo!

It looks tiny. But someone with a better camera took this photo.

Source: Photo by Hansa

I think it's great that we have been able to have this couple in the middle of our city and that people really care about them. We stopped using fire crackers, they have their own fund and every year if they have chicks it's good news.

Lots of nail tips in this post!!

It has become a weekly routine to change nailvarnish. Sundays or saturdays are the days for this activity. You know already that I sit a lot, studying or working by the computor and thats a time I can combine with nail painting.

One design I've always wanted to achieve is the triangled "half moon". I tried with scotch tape, sticky notes etc. You can see my sticky note result at my pointing finger, really bad.

Then Johan came up with the brilliant idea that I should try his electrical tape because its very flexible. It worked great! Another tip is to cut the tape in a small triangle and not a square, that makes it even more flexible, but smaller piece to handle. My ring and pinkie finger nails are masked with the last tape.

I might have written this before but I would like to add some tips to my:

How to grow long nails

List

• File your nails in a pointy shape. Specially if your nails tends to brake from the sides.
• I know eat sleep and live well have influence on how your nails will look and you already know that.
• I have noticed that my nails are breaking easier and are weaker, like my hair, as I become older and coming closer to the menopause (not there yet). So stay young noting the line above.
• Use a nail polish remover that doesn't weaken your nails. I tried one acetone free that actually dilluted the plastic of my keyboard, it contained propylene carbonate. I use one now that contains ethyl acetate and it works fine.
• After the polish remover, wash your hands and moisturize and re-grease them with a oil rich hand cream.
• Use a protecting base coat, like the one in the photo below. Two layers.
• Do your nail art and let the varnish dry completely befor another layer is applied.
• Finish with a hard top coat that protects your design.
• Don't hurry. I did and broke several nails while digging in my handbag for keys.

Winter came...and the cold

We finally got what I call a proper winter, with snow. Guess who's been doing the happy dance?

But...It's the temperature stays lower than -20 degrees, down to -28 at night (-4-(-18) Fahrenheit)

So, all our plans with cross country skiing, skating, downhill skiing are put on hold. It's too damn cold outside.

The air is very dry-frozen right now and skin and throat are very dry (indoors as well). 

This day is magical. If I look up in the sky the air is full of glittering frost particles. If you enlarge the photo below you can see some white dots

 I feel sorry for the animals outdoors but they manage to survive somehow. 

Bat fit update:

Me and a couple of friends have joined a 30 days squats and plank challenge. On the 30th day I will achieve to do the plank for 5 minutes and 250 squats. My goal is to continue with a burpee challenge and then set up a daily scedule for excersize. One goal I had on hold for too long now is to start running again. I really have to set that goal soon, before it's too late.

Nail art

I read a lot of books and work in front of the computor, that can become very boring, so in an attempt to cope with sitting still; I paint my nails. You know, nail varnish needs time to dry, right?

Inspired by Cutenails tutorials I tried nailart myself, an easy one. Well not very easy, my hands are a bit shaky and I will not show you the other hand that I painted with my right hand (I'm lefthanded)

I used a golden varnish as a base and black and ocra acrylic paint to make swirls and dots. The tools comes froma nail art box I bought at the local supermarket, nothing fancy. I used a dotting tool and a fine brush. 

Heres a video of some inspiration. This video is quite old but it's a good starter and she has developed her style tremendously since then.

Like this one

Time for digging down in my books again, while the varnish is drying.