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Days 3, 4 & 5 | After
Looks like we’re driving up on Sunday, not tomorrow, as I thought. That kind of rendered my melt-down last night pointless, since it’s a lot less stressful this way …
Day 3 Compared to day 3, it looks like we just moved the lamps and boxes around. The status quo I would not have survived this week without coffee and Daft Punk. Somehow the line „Our work is never over“ got stuck in my head by the end of the week …
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Day 2 | After
Obviously not much point in a before pic – see yesterday’s after.
I am actually quite content right now with the progress, which is not how I felt yesterday and this morning when I woke up. It seemed like my goal to get this entire move over with before my birthday (this upcoming Sunday) was completely insane, and as usual, when I cannot meet my completely unrealistic expectations, instead of adjusting them I felt like a failure.
Somehow things flowed today, though, and all we have left to do now is clear out the kitchen and the balcony, and clean everything. If we get the last of the packing done tomorrow, we have Thursday and maybe even Friday for the cleaning. That doesn’t seem so crazy, does it?
I am super-grateful for help we’ve been offered from Peter’s brother. Renting trucks to pick up here and leave there is insanely expensive, so Peter’s ever so resourceful mom came up with the genius idea of renting a truck at rent-a-wreck in Sundsvall, having Felix drive it down here, and the three of us driving the truck with our stuff and our car back up the next day. That way it’ll all be done in one fell swoop. I am almost a little in shock that Felix agreed to do this – I am really not digging the whole moving thing, and frankly I wouldn’t even help myself if I had that option. And I don’t even have to go to work right now!? So, really grateful, and I hope Felix will never move because we owe him big time after this …
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Day 1 | After
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Day 1 | Before
This is what it looks like in our living room this morning:
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August 23 2013
From now on, that’s a date worth remembering. It’s the day we bought the house. Yay! We are still determined to move in before September 1, so from here on out we’ll be busy packing and cleaning like maniacs.
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Knitted poofs | How To
Couldn’t stop myself from searching for a How To on these puppies.
Picture via. I found this one on Knittastic. No idea when or if I’ll get around to this …
PS: I know I am behind on this trend but I am slow that way. I always have to go through the process of 1. rejecting the hype, 2. getting used to it, 3. liking it just in time for everyone else to have moved on to something else (at which point the process starts all over).
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What I do when I am not packing | Procrastination
We mean business. No, not the banana trade business. We mean the business that is packing so we get outta here.
We got boxes alright … Now we just have to pack our stuff. We still don’t know when we’re going to be able to move but when you think about it, packing a little each day would make it so much easier in the long run. „Would“ being the operative word here, since you know how these things go: you start out with a totally sensible game plan, and then you end up putting it off until the last minute, 30 seconds of which will be spent wondering why you didn’t stick with your plan, and what did you do with all that time anyway that you didn’t spent packing.
Well, let this be my account for at least part of that time not spent packing: obviously, I spend that time on the internet. Looking for inspiration for the part of the renovating process that I am looking forward to the most but which I already realized is going to end up pretty much on the bottom of the priority list of things that need fixing – decorating. Even I realized that waterproofing exterior unfortunately trumps beautifying interior.
So this is me preparing to get sucked into an alternate universe where things are upside down:
I am definitely into the style of Jess‘ room … … and not just because it basically feels like my own after watching two seasons of New Girl in three days Digging the technical drawing of the dandelion. I also dig Catalina Estrada’s folklore wall paper art, although I don’t really care for how it looks like it was drawn on a computer. I guess I would like for it to be a little more scrawly. Still – pretty cool. *** *** I could go on – but I won’t check out Catalina Estrada’s site for more More folklore … and more. I wouldn’t want any of our rooms to look like this but I am liking the whole bright-colors-lots-of-ornaments-and-small-decorative-items thing that these folklore style rooms have going on Love the wall AND the tiles. I could also get down with an idea on the other end of the scale: an all white room with one element that pops out. Not necessarily with china dolls or a cheetah carpet … (Another) Future DIY project? Very much into yellow lately. I wonder if it’s just a phase or if I could actually live with wallpapers like these for a while … I’m thinking downstairs hallway. To be honest, I have seen these PiP wallpapers in a look book at a store (passing time waiting for the library to open, not that you asked), and I didn’t think they looked that great from up close. Anything that is processed by computer kind of loses it’s soul in my eyes … Maybe I need to draw my own wallpapers … Also digging turquoise in general and this baby in particular. Nice job! Well, so much for now. How do you spend your time procrastinating stuff? Got any inspiration for me (not in the procrastination department, doing pretty ok there by myself, but in the decorating department)? Feel free to send it my way!
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Indestructible | Plant life
The deal with the house has felt so right and so real the whole time to me that making the down-payment (this past Monday) doesn’t even seem like that big of a milestone. The house has felt like ours the whole time.
Not even the fact that we’re still waiting for an appointment with a chimney sweeper (who, we hope, will tell us that everything is OK because otherwise things could suddenly take a turn towards pretty pricey …) can change that. Like I’ve been saying: I have come to the conclusion that I’d rather be excited about things than worried even if not everything is settled yet. If everything works out, then great – I did not waste any time worrying. If things don’t work out – then at least I had those moments of excitement and happiness. Anything can change at any time anyway, so.
The plants in our apartment, which we once again abandoned for a trip up north, remind me how powerful and amazing life is. If these little guys can bounce back like that, so can I if for some reason things with this house don’t turn out as I imagine …
Tuesday night … They actually looked a lot better already a few minutes after watering them. I just didn’t really bother to take any more pictures until this morning. If I can just get one tomato from these I’ll be happy. Yes, that is a plant pot with the O’boy logo painted on. Don’t ask. -
The gap that allows for change to take place …
… I think that’s what this thing I am in is. Here is the current state of affairs:
- I now have an indefinite residence permit for Sweden – yay!
- We’ll be able to have a phone at the house – yay!
- We’ll be able to have internet at the house – yay!
- The internet will be old school, very slow, no looking at pictures, only text – meh!
- The bank is willing to give us a loan for the house – yay! I mean, scary – loaning money – but yay!
- I have applied for two jobs which I would be super-excited about if I got either of them. Yay! (I know „two“ doesn’t sound like a lot but I am more of a „few-but-put-a-lot-of-time-and-effort-into-them“ kind of application-writer, not the „if-I-write-200-applications-something-has-to-work-out“ type)
- We are heading up to Sundsvall today (yes, this is a scheduled post), to spend some more time checking out the electrosmog situation in the area.
- I am kind of freaking out right now. I think it’s the parts of me that don’t want to let go of the old, that are afraid of change, that are acting up now because they now that this is legit. It’s on! I guess I’m just gonna have to ride this one out but I am scared at the prospect of having to face this side of me. Not having any diversions like, say, the internet, will definitely do that: force me to face myself – yikes! Without ever having dared to watch Antichrist, I think it’s what I am picturing this little trip in my head right now. Only I might be both of the spouses. Although, not having any diversions like, say, the internet, will probably give Peter and I plenty room for ugly fights, too. Let’s hope these wannabe house-buyers make it till Thursday – that’s when the official safety dude that’s checking out the house is stopping by. And when we’ll set up the actual contract.
Cloudberries – more common in the north of Sweden. We saw one at Indian-Per’s. It wasn’t this blurry, though, that’s just me doing a bad job taking pictures without flash. Sorry.
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Indian-Per
Last night we visited a former colleague of Peter’s. They don’t call him „Indian-Per“ for nothing: he’s single-handedly turned the farm he bought into a ranch. This guy really has an eye (and two hands) for details. I took some pix, check it out:
Where there’s an Indian-Per, there’s a tipi … or three … aiming for twelve (!) The stables. Indian-Per has two horses and a dog, all three of which are so well trained that they walk around on the property without any fence. Impressive. And adorable. Bathtubs upcycled – how cool is that? This is actually the view from the terrace, so imagine sitting in one of those bathtubs and looking at this (the sauna, btw). And of course, the sauna itself has a great view of the pond, too (which I managed not to capture here). So inspiring to meet someone with a vision and so much drive. Inspiration is important, Per agreed – inspiration not to copy others but to become your own original. Well, I’d say he’s got that one down.