icebergs, 1894

from here

winter survival

A few things helping me get through February this year:

A new stack of Scandinavian/Nordic mysteries and Wallander on DVD - so good! 

I have ventured away from Sweden and on to Iceland and Norway. I'm savouring the last Wallander book now.

I haven't started the Jo Nesbo yet, but I've finished the three Icelandic mysteries by Indridason, and they were great.

Tulips from my valentine.

Beautiful old type drawer to display some of my collections (birthday present from my honey). 

Filling this up with tiny things will occupy me for a while.

Mail from far away friends.

Knitting my first baby sweater (for a cousin's forthcoming little one).

I've also been re-watching Veronica Mars, one of my favourite shows ever. So addictive! 

What has been helping you to survive this winter?

birthday #30

Yesterday was my 30th birthday. I took the day off work, slept in, got my hair trimmed (professionally for the first time in over a year - yikes!), bought some yarn and started a new knitting project (more about that later, hopefully), and went out for an amazing dinner with Andrew at Atlantic. It was a perfect day. My parents had these flowers delivered for me - so sweet! And my Dad sent me this photo on facebook. I think I was about 5 years old? Notice the rad tent trailer in the background. I love it! It is mini-me! It's funny how I seem to look more like my young-child-self now than I did at any other time in my teenagehood/adulthood. I guess it's the hair.

I feel pretty good about being 30. I don't really see why people make such a fuss about this number. I guess I'm pretty lucky to feel happy about where I'm at in my life right now.

first collection

This is my first rock collection. Well, not counting things I picked up off the ground. I've been looking for it for ages, and finally found it hidden in our cluttered apartment. I brought it for show-and-tell in kindergarten, and while it was sitting on the counter at the back of the classroom, waiting for show-and-tell time, some kid covered up my name with blue marker. So mean! He vandalized my rock collection! I was so upset. But I wrote my name again on the lid with some stars and hearts. And my mom wrote my name on the underside of the lid and on the bottom of the box with my address. It was clearly a precious possession. I'm not sure about the math equations on the back. I can't imagine that I would have written those there, since it was such a special object to me, so maybe someone else did that too? Curious. Anyways, I'm so happy I found it! It is definitely my most treasured childhood artifact.