Habitants of Blogerland has moved to instagram and some to tiktok and snapchat. I have also moved partly and post short snippets of my life at instagram. I run two accounts. One in english, where I post more personal photos and tell things I do. The other account is about private economy and how to run a family and a house with one income, that is written in Swedish. I will put the links in the sidebar. 

2021 was a year in a limbo sort of way. The distance to everyone took out its poll on us. It was a few years ago since I felt this tired. I would love to prolonge the summer and never go back to work...yeah, sounds not like me at all as I love my job and my students. We are all tired. 

I got my third jab  a week ago and now I frankly give a damn about distance. I wash my hands and I use alcogel. But a mask is completely useless if you spend time in a small room toghether with 30 students. If I haven't been sick, I will become sick sooner or later...Whatever. I will throw a hell of a party later. 

My love for my dear S grows deeper and deeper. He is such an amazing man. I do beleive my mother (who can be suspicious) has taken him to her heart as well. She even slipped out an "Aw, he's so sweet, following us around" when he drove us to different flea markets and they had friendly conversations in the front seat. He really treat people with equal respect and is very caring about people around him. Never fake-friendly and never to receive benefits for his own. 

During the coldest days of November and December me and my boys changed roof on the house. I'm so impressed of my oldest. He worked so fast yet thoroughly. I have a shiny roof now with no risk of leakage. I will continue this work this year by repainting the house and rebuild the balcony. The balcony looks so stupid, like a wooden box. 

Toodle , from me in a bright red wig. I wish my hair could look like this

Self sustainable

I am no one's

and no one is mine

I owe no one

and no one owes me

First, thank you for your kind words. I will emphasize that we are still good friends. I got all the clears from the bank and are waiting for all the papers to arrive.

Johan got an apartment to rent on this side of town, amazingly quick and thanks to aquaintances. He will be gone in a month.

I'm worried about the economy and if I will be able to manage all the loans and bills that comes with a house. There are so many things to consider, tv, internet, insurances etc. If my health would fail me it would be devastating. So in order to keep myself floating I really have to turn every stone/penny before I buy new stuff and save as much as I can for harder times...There's a roof to change in the future as well.

The plans to save money would look ridicilous in the eyes of many, but all the tiniest pebbles will build a mountain in the long run. I do this also for my son, he's a teenager and won't be too bothered by my scrimping.

I cannot say enough how pleased I am with my bokashi compost. It is amazing. This method will give me free planting soil. On sunday I filled a wheelbarrow with dark nutricious soil. It took only 6 week to compost. You don't need worms and you don't get any problems with flies, rodents or foul smell, perfect!

I topped a leaf and bokashi compost with the soil and sowed spinach.  

Topped the seeds with a thin layer of more soil and the watered with loads of snow.

The lid will give a warmer climate. Does it looks weird? Well the seeds will grow when they think it's time and they will sprout earlier. 

I wen't completely bananas with the chili seeds. I have chilis in every window now. Maybe I will cook my own chilisauce for next winter. 

So, you can see I'm planning to make it work, by continue to grow my own vegetables and expand my vegetable garden even more. I'm only worried about my health though, I have Mr Depression tapping on my shoulder and have to keep him at bay, I have to, I must do this.

I have never felt that I can rely on another human, so this will actually be no difference, only a bit more lonely.

Time flies

The semester started insanely hectic. Things that really stress me out, is when I don't have control over the situation and when I don't get the time for planning and reflection. I have been on the edge of exhaustion lately. I have a ton of work to do, but right now, I'll take the time to write a post. Because it's autumn 💜. I love it. I will soon lay the garden to rest for winter.

We had our first frost night, but I snatched a photo of my mediterranean corner before it hit. Pumpkin, basil, cucumber, sunflowers, grape, lavender, tomatoes and chilis are growing together at this spot. The tomatoes looks tired, but the cucumber likes this moist weather.

I learned a lesson about pumpkins, this summer. They crossbreed with zucchini very easy. You can see a glimpse of it by the colour of the green pumpkin. I Planted what I thought was a Connecticut field (Traditional Halloween pumpkin), but the fruit looked like a swollen zucchini. That one is left in the garden. I also realised that pumkins actually prefer a normal summer, not the hot and dry one like we had this year.

My flower beds are a sad sight. But I also grow flowers in my vegetable garden, they literally flourish. The green twigs with red berries are aspargus. There are seeds inside the berries that I will try to sow.

My Begonia Odorata having its crescendo right now. I took it indoors to enjoy the flowers. Johan thinks they smell like Gin and Tonic.

Things I do at work: Letting the teenagers burn metallic salts. I beleive it's Potassiumpermanganate here, or a mixture of salts (because they have to try that too).

I reminded my old chemistry teachers hands, they looked damaged of all the chemicals he unsafely handled. I looked the same (almost). It is the salt mentioned above that gives these spots. They disappeared a day later.

Our ash tree at the backyard looks so beautiful with the green and yellow tones. 

♥️

Garden days

My partner has start working and the kids are gone with their other parents, so I'm home alone. It is nice but a bit lonely in the long run. I like use my time for different projects and hobbies, gardening is one of them.

On the south side of the house, the sun and the houses creates a warm spot for plants like tomatos, lemons, lavender, etc. I bought seeds of a chili called coffe this year. The plant looks nice with purple flowers and fruits black as sin, or coffe. But the heat is missing, I can use it raw in salads and people will beleive I have used tiny paprika. The purple flower is Ipomoea Purpurea (latin), I saw this growing wild in Greece and fell instantly in love with it.

I have a box on the south side were I intended to grow basil and cucumber. Well I got a pumpkin instead. If you lift the plate sized leafs and look underneath, you find the basil.   

Let's take a stroll to the backyard were my vegetable beds are.

Under the net curtain (Jill from Ikea) hides cabbage and cauliflowers. This is the only way to grow cauliflowers without larvaes.

Zucchini is my every year staple. I grow them from my own seeds. It has become expensive to buy seeds and the number of seeds in a package are reduced. So if you like to grow veggies like me, learn how to grow seeds as well. You can se some short corn plants to the left.

This is my bed of roots. But the one first in view , under the compost fence is salad, parsil and dill. I have a couple of deers living nearby who think this is a buffé of delicasies. The bed behind is beetroots. Swedish people love pickled beetroots. 

I also grow garlic, parsnips, challots and carrots. As we don't have any water restrictions, I water my vegetables shamelessely. But I save water from the tap and rinse water from the clothes wash for my plants.

The sad part of my garden.

The apple trees are bending towards the ground with so many apples, but they are falling because of the drought. I have cucumbers, borlotti beans and pumpkins in this part. I also have covered a part with a plastic cover, because lack of time in the beginning of summer.

The cucumber plants might look small but they produce nice pickle cucumbers. I made my first jar a couple of days ago. These are to die for. They are very popular among my friends.

Here's the recipe

In a sauce pan, bring following ingredients to boil.

150 ml of white vinegar (12 %)

500 ml water

500 ml sugar

50 ml salt

Rinse and slice the cucumbers (the kind for pickling) and put them in a clean jar. You can add dill flowers and mustard seeds if you like. Try to fill the jar as much you can.

Pour the boiling pickle juice over the cucumbers and seal the lid tight.

If it is air tight, the jar can be stored for at least a year.

I rarely take the time to rest. But sometimes I need to sit down and think for a while. An old rattan chair, that I got from my grand father is to rattly to use indoors, but fits perfect for short rests for me.

Winter vacation part 1

Schools are closing one week in february every year in Sweden, thankfully the teachers are also off work. Every weekend I take a stroll through my garden to do some snow shoveling, feeding the birds and checking animal tracks. The photo below shows my backyard. It looks empty besides a few trees but it's because the vegetable beds are covered with snow.

I wanted to show Alfons the mountains and go skiing with him and Oskar so yesterday, I drove for 3 hours to get to Sälen, wich are the closests alps here. It was an amazing and fun day with my boys. On the top of the mountain, the icy snow blasted our faces. It hurt but it had a wonderful taste and smell of the ocean. Some of my strongest memories are connected with a smell, so now I have another one.

I call this post part one, because we only have been from work a half week. This weekend will have some really great things happening so, to be continued..

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.

DIY Nailpolish shelf

I'm so sorry for not keeping up reading your blogs. I really don't have the time. I thought this semester would be easier but apart from the teaching schedule I have a large bunch of students to help them to fix old failed examinas. Plus no time for studying myself, bohoo!
A while ago, I got this great idea. I was tired of digging for the right colour in the basket where I store my nailpolishes . I thought of looking for a spice shelf but something made of acrylic would be more practical. It's easier to see the package and the colour with a transparent material, right? 
My idea took shape after som measuring and scetching. And it is easier than I thought, so I must share it with you :-)

First of all you need acrylic plastic. Check the size your supplier sells and calculate how much you need. I hung my shelves on the inside of the bathroom cupboard and the sheets with the size below were perfect. On both sides there is a plastic shield that you should leave until it's time to heat the plastic

The shelv is basically a rectangular piece that is bent two times to form the shelf. First I take a fine toothed saw (for sawing steel tubes etc) and cut of 10mm on the lenght side. This part will be sides of the shelves.

On the side that will be the upper part of the shelf, two holes for hanging is drilled. I recommend you to buy screws in the right dimension before you drill a hole.

Now is the time to remove the shielding plastic. Take a sharp needle or something and a ruler. Measure out were the bends should be placed and carve a line with the help by the ruler and needle. Use a heating gun to warm the plastic on both sides. Remember, this will need time, patience and control. If you heat the plastic to much the plastic will bubble before you even notice. Too little and the plastic will never bend. 

Note that your surface should be CLEAN. I got some spots on the acrylic while working on this bench. Anyway the steel lined work bench were perfect for this job. With some help of a scrapped steel plate I bent the front of the becoming shelf. Don't take short cuts on this, the bend must be 90 degrees.

Heat again on both sides of the plastic and bend again. 

This is how the finished shelf looks like in a closeup. A piece of acrylic is glued with super glue on the sides. The nail polish bottles slip very easy.

Shelves are ready to be filled. Well I filled them and there were half of the nailpolishes left. So I have to make some more of these. One cannot have too many nailpolishes.

A shitty summer turned to a nice autumn. No frost yet and some weird delays in natures circle like, flying ants 22 of august instead of the 8th like they always do. I'm convinced it's the pollution.

 I finally got some black hollycocks in bloom. They have a different shade depending on the light, its very nice. I got a row of large sunflowers filled with seeds. The bumblebees likes to rest in them. Some of them get slower and slower until they die hanging on the flower. Anyway the seeds will become healthy sprouts for the winter.

Just some random things...

As the summer passed by the hermit has become more socially interested in people and restless wich is usually positive things. But I have also become really stupid, not using the brain, does this. According to my brother who's spouse also is a teacher, this is very common. 

Today was worst: We went to an water park and I started to put my bathing suit outside in. Thankfully I started to complain to Moa (the bonus daughter) that it was very ugly and made her look at it and pointed the mistake out. Then she remarked that the key tag should be on the arm instead of the leg, for easier entrance. When I was about to go home a heavy shower made me wet when I ran to get the car. A large puddle hid a pit that made me fall and I got completely soaked including everything I was carrying. Back home I offered Moa microwaved cinnamon bun dough (it should have been baked in the owen) and when making coffe I noticed that I had made coffe on yesterdays grounds without even noticing a difference in taste.

Other days were more successful. We bought a new sofa, at last. I had a vision of a victorian antique one with lots of wood carvings and velvet, but this option was more practical, must admit that.

I made deliscious macarons for the bonus kids birthday (same birthday, different ages).

We visited an ostrich farm and I snatched me some lovely feathers that I will dye.

And visited the holy spring to dip toes and drink icy cold water. This spring supports two cities with water. 

The vegetable garden is a mess because of bad weather. But I succeded to grow cuttings from my grape wine and to get small grapes too. I've been handing out the plants to friends and family and have two left to plant. Easy peasy.

 I got beautiful flowers from a friend at visit. I want that lily!! The name is something with chocolate.

I hope your summer has been great. Mine is not completely over yet. I have a couple of weeks before work begins. I really loved to have a long summer vacation and look forward to my work even more now.