doing life

what have you been up to lately?

i have been doing life, you know those too boring/unacceptable to blog about moments and feelings in everyday life. you know, going to a job you don't really love (although i LOVE the trees outside, which are photographed above!), feeling like a failure for not keeping up with those courses i stupidly thought i'd be able to take while working full time (at said not loved job), thinking about how in 10 years i'll most likely be too late for me to have babies, cleaning up cat vomit.. you know those sort of things. it's not really something you want to take a photo of and put on intagram, or at least i don't.

i have been thinking a lot about this blog, and today Chantilly wrote something that i could relate to SO much (well except being a small business owner, mother, rather popular blogger, and coming to a conclusion). spoiler alert if you're gonna read it; it's basically about how she thought about quit blogging but eventually came to the conclusion she'd stick with it, with some to her major changes. it's much more interesting and well written than that sentence to go ahead and read it, i'll be waiting, promise!

back? good! i'm not done with this blog yet, but i've yet to figure out what i want it to be. i'm sick of pretty much 99% of all blogs i follow, i'm sick of the lifestyle blogs, the fashion blogs, the craft blogs and the blogs in between. i don't want to have a blog that i don't want to read, but i don't know what i want anymore, just what i don't want, which seems like nothing. at the moment i'm interested in these things: cuddling my cats, working out, cleaning out clutter from our apartment. AND i have just recently started to knit a bit again (which is a part of that deleting clutter project since i'm trying to use up my yarn stash), but that's about it to be honest. so where does that leave me, if i would write about my current interests? it'd be all like "Hello blog friend! today i'm gonna talk about lint. oh and here's a picture of my cats distracting me while i do my pilates." perhaps do a vlog about my top 5 tips on how to keep your cats from chewing on your yoga mat? haha!

i'm gonna give this some thought, and just writing this grumpy piece gives me some ideas actually... and what i really want to do is open my rss reader and catch up with YOUR blogs! i've been ignoring all social media and blogs for a bit too long now, i think i just need to take the bull by it's horns and spring clean the shit out of it and keep basic and manageable.

i hope you're having a wonderful start of the new month! (i've spent mine with a stomach flu but let's talk about that some other time)
xo

on being MIA

i've been MIA for, what, 6 weeks now? a long, long time. my break from social media and blogging was totally unplanned, i just woke up one day not feeling it anymore. i have a tendency to go all in in every project i take on, giving it my all and then some, and then, finding myself totally burned out. while i'm in the middle of a project (this can be a new job, a hobby or lifestyle) i'm hyper and happy, and then i crash. i should know by now, shouldn't i? i know this is how it works for me and still i get so caught up in this new fun project and i want to dedicate all my time and energy on, that there is just no time for me to sit back and reflect and maybe taking it a bit easy to prevent that fall.

i've been blogging for ages and i've fallen a few times, but never this hard, but then again i'd never had as high goals with it either. this time i wanted to blog a certain amount of times a week, i wanted to offer quality posts, i wanted to guest post and sponsor other blogs.. it might not sound like an awful lot, but while starting a new job that i wasn't extremely satisfied with, plus taking 4 classes, trying to get a bit more healthy, and getting out of my cave and start seeing friends again, it was just all WAY too much for me.

blogging didn't seem like fun anymore, it became a boring chore. i said to myself that i'd take a week off and think about new features and a way to make it fun again. 6 weeks later i'm still not sure how to find that love again. i hope i'll find it soon, because i miss it. perhaps i'll let myself blog sporadically for a while, not be so focused on producing something 5 days a week.

have you ever found yourself feeling burned out from blogging? how did you over come it? any tips or ideas are highly welcome!


as a sort of peace offering i uploaded the lavender sachet tutorial i made a while back for a guest post. take it or leave it.



download the pattern and instructions here.

spring cleaning

i'm sorry i haven't updated as regularly, i've caught the spring cleaning bug. i'm in the middle of re-evaluating just about every aspect of my life and that leaves little time left for blogging. you see, between going through my wardrobe and planning my spring/summer look, working out and cleaning just about everything (as in computer folders mostly, not our home, that's not fun) i just have to obsessively watch swedish Big Brother. so, no time for recapping what's hot on the internets or baking for tea time. march is just around the corner and the weather is slowly getting warmer and i just can't wait!

basically, i want to get rid of all old junk once and for all, and slowly add new, nice things. call it a new beginning. simple but time consuming.

my spring cleaning plan:

- delete all junk from my computer
prio 1 is the music folder. i just spent over an hour down sizing the amount of blogs i follow through my rss reader. i read this on craftypod.com and realized it was silly following the same people on just about every social media ever existed, so i've been unfollowing some that i know i keep up with through twitter or elsewhere anyways, making the rss reader more manageable. hopefully i'll be able to keep up with everyone now instead of in fear closing my eyes and click "mark all as read" when i see the amount of unread blog posts.

- sew new clothes and get rid of old ugly ones
i've already sewn 2 skirts that i'm very pleased with.

- throw out old make up
i bet i can find stuff at least 5 years old around here. dried up nail polish makes no one happy.

- work out
i have no intention of losing weight, i just want to be strong and flexible again. i'm a restless and easily bored soul so please share your favourite work out dvds! i'm doing Winsor Pilates dvds and Carmen Electra's Fit to Strip (i'm not much for the actual aerobic strip tease dvds in the series, but this is a great straight forward work out, imo).


what are you up to? are you getting ready for the new season?

commitment problems

i've been crocheting for i don't know how long. my grandmother taught me when i was a kid, and back then i produced quite a collection of wobbly doilies and clothes for my Barbies. since then i've crocheted lots of other creations, but never have i crocheted a blanket of any sort. i've always been afraid of the commitment of large projects, and a blanket has always seemed like the largest of them all, but a few days ago i took a deep breath and made a bunch of squares. i haven't decided whether i've started a normal sized blanket of a baby sized one. time will tell how long i manage to commit.

are you creating something at the moment?
what craft, or other, scares you? and, do you think you'll ever challenge yourself and make them?

tea time : chocolate cupcakes

on tuesday, the day this post was supposed to be written and posted, i neither celebrated international pancake day or the swedish semmeldagen, i spent it with a splitting headache and one of these in my mouth. part from the headache i'd say i'm pretty satisfied despite the lack of pancakes and semlor.

recipe:

150 g butter
2 eggs
3 deciliter sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
2 tablespoons cacao powder
4½ deciliters flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1½ deciliter milk

icing:
75 g butter
1-2 tablespoons cold coffee or water
1 tablespoon cacao powder
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
3½ deciliter icing sugar

garnish:
shredded coconut

melt the butter and let it cool. whisk egg and sugar until it's nice and poufy. add the dry ingredients and milk and butter. mix well. fill the cupcake liners and bake for approx 15-20 minutes at 175 degrees.

icing: melt the butter and add the other ingredients.

smear the icing on top of the cool cupcakes and sprinkle the shredded coconut on top.

eat!