Wooden Cooking Spoon

I'm so sick of this grey spell that's hit this week. It was so lovely up until Valborg (April 30th/ a holiday known as Walpurgis Night.) I headed out to Rosenhill to partake in a celebration with huge bonfires, singing to welcome in Spring, and some nice grilled food, live music and a few beers with good people. It was spectacular to see so much fire: two bonfires that were simply enormous, like, as big as houses. It was awesome! I'd been housesitting for the family I work for and then finally on May first, Johannes and I moved into our apartment. It snowed that morning. On the first of May!

Moving Day

Johannes' father helped us with a moving van, and we tramped around town to gather all of our various belongings from various locations. As evening swept up our doorstep, we waved goodbye to the "parents" and closed the door to our apartment like "adults." Right, so.... bits of furniture here, mattress there, a row of boxes and IKEA bags lined down the center of the living room in Stage-hand manner— according to Johannes, it's common for Stage/Techies to line up all the gear from events in rows, to have better access to everything—and no lights. NO LIGHTS! They'd left the apartment to us with no bulbs and no light fixtures. We were quite in the dark for the first night, save for the single-bulb on a cord for my Christmas Star, and one lamp that'd we'd brought. We managed though, and it's been really fun figuring out how everything is going to work. The kitchen is pretty well stocked, but it's thin in the pots and pans department. I bought some nice plants for the windowsills and that's helping immensely to make the place homier. Today I found some nice, springy curtains at a second-hand shop, but we have no curtain rods, so we're improvising. There are SO many things that we have on our to-do list. We plan to build a raised platform eating-corner for the kitchen, and some sort of cozy thing in the living room with lots of pillows and comfyness. And we strictly saying NO TV! I hope to use some pallets for random bits of furniture and definitely for a balcony garden. We want to paint the walls and make this place really cool, eventually. I went scouting for a vacuum cleaner today, but that proved harder than I'd expected. Instead I came home with curtains and a wooden cooking spoon, because, well, we needed one of those too. Ah, well... one thing at a time.

Living Room Day 1

Living Room Day 4

Our apartment is a bit drafty, so I resort to rolling myself up into a down burrito... 

At least we've got our desks set up and I finally feel like I have a proper place to sit and think and write. It's so overwhelming, this whole home-making business. I absolutely love it, but it's an interesting experience to start over in an empty building and make it a home. Good thing I have Johannes and my plants. I think we live in a nice area. We're at the edge of a humungous nature reserve, completely with lakes and some organic farms that sell fresh meat and honey. We went to a spring day gathering at the farm on Sunday and met some nice cows, horses and a beekeeper. I can't wait to get a bike and explore it more thoroughly. If only the weather would turn up a bit. Seriously, 6 degrees? Come on May, I thought we threw a nice party for you...

All I gotta do is cross the E18 and walk a bit and I can hang out with this cool dude.

All sunny and nice...

Then the rainclouds rolled in.....

 It's very windy and we live by a giant water tower. Not just "by" a giant water tower, but like 100 feet from it. It's super cool and reminds me of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. There's a bench up there and the sunset we saw a few nights ago was spectacular. There's a parkour park nearby, and Johannes started to teach me a bit. This neighborhood is filled with blooming things, and buzzing things, and very, very, very interesting tasting things in the stores here, because we've sort of moved to the "hood", an immigrant-rich neighborhood that many Stockholmers might view with disdain. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers, and like I said before, I like it here. There's good pita bread and ridiculously cheap chick peas and pickled things.

Home is where the plants are, (and where the heart is)

I like it here, we finally have an apartment, a place to turn into a home, I have a job and good friends and yet I've been so blue these past two days. I think it has something to do with the weather. It went from bright 18° t-shirt weather to overcast 6° and my rain jacket under full but unyielding skies. I've been miserable these past two days. I haven't had such a case of the blues in a long while. It makes me wonder how on earth I ever survived the winter. Blah, no! No more talk of winter. Hopefully we will soon turn the page to summer and my gloomy episode will dissolve. I want chocolate...There's the German in me speaking. But really, I have felt completely depressed, annoyed and hopeless for the past 48 hours, like there is absolutely no point to life. I hate it when that happens, especially when I can't find a reason. I'm sort of tripping down memory lane in ways that I haven't before. I'm seeing my highschool years as a long time ago, and I'm starting to feel a bit like a failure. Maybe the space and reality of a place to truly call home is hitting me harder than I realize, and my emotions can't keep up. It's overwhelming. Hmm, I think I'm gonna go curl up into a ball or something because I really don't feel like I have the energy for anything else. The only worthwhile thing that seems to have happened today was that wooden cooking spoon. Hmmmmm... Friday please have sun!

Last week's daisy chains

Last week's sunshine