Dress in meat

How far would one go to get famous. This is a dress worn by Lady Gaga made by meat. This is this too much outside the box to be good?



Above: Lady Gaga in her dress of meat.

Why not make your own case for your Iphone. Here is two creative women who made a blog were you can upload your own work of your crossed stitches:

http://korsstygnsarkivet.blogspot.com/2010/06/glasogonfodral-med-dalahast-och.html

Cool jewelry

Why not taking it cool with some ice jewelry. Up here in the North we are getting closer to the dark and cold period so I don´t think this jewelry would be very appreciated here but in some warmer areas perhaps. And it is inspiring to try and think outside the box. If you like to read more about this artist named Katharina Ludwig. Press this link:

http://guestofaguest.com/gift-giving/the-best-guests-come-bearing-gifts-ice-jewelry/

All the best
Anna Axelsson
jewelry designer - Jord Sweden Collection

I never take them off

I tend to have lots of bracelets on my arms. Usually when I make/design a new one I put the first one on my own arm. After testing it for quite a while to make sure it feels good, I usually keep it on my arm. I never take them off. Right now I have one unisex bracelet, one heroine, droppe. On the other arm I have the Stormrider and another one not in the webshop yet. Interesting to know is that I have had one the unisex bracelet with black braided leather for approx. 4 years. The heroine for little less than a year. The stormrider for a few months. I shower, bathe and do anything with these to test them. I put a bit vaseline or vax or creme on them once in a while so they don´t get dried out.

All the best from me
Anna

I have bought cute curtains in pink for my little girl

I have tryed to make my little darling like other colours but pink.She has a determent mind and often refuse having anything but pink. I have surrendered. Her room is now filled with her favorite colour. I can show you her new cute curtains with princesses and pink.

These are to be found at both www.Halens.se and www.Cellbes.se for only 138 krones.
Sheap if you ask me.

Hope you are having a great time
Anna

White is the Nordic colour

Now and then we go to Ella garden to have a nice brunch on a Sunday. This is a photo from one of those occations. Italian fresh food in a swedish way. The best thing is the Swedish enviroment. An old farm made into a big white dining room.

All the best
Anna

Hello there! It´s been a while. I have had my hands full with Easter and sick children. When everyone thought spring was coming it started to snow like never before. We haven't made a snowman in two years and suddenly there was enough snow for that kind of activity last Sunday. We were out all four in the family enjoying the snow. I think I was the one enjoying it the most. Today most of the snow is gone with the rain. Hopefully we have some warm winds coming in soon. Could you send some here... I know I have some visitors from places like Hawaii, China, Portugal, Africa and other places with agreeable climate.

In Sweden we have lots of space and green areas. The older generation live in their houses in nice enviroments. The younger generations pay huge amounts of money to buy their place to build and live. Me and Fred have been dreaming about a house for several years. The house prices have increased in a frightening way the past years. One thing is for sure: we should have bought a long time ago. Today you have to put everything you can earn in a house if you want one. Today old houses are as expensive as new houses so we are thinking about building one. To build a house in Sweden is like living out a Kafka story. We have lots of green areas and lots of rules what to do with them. We found a spot where we wanted to build a house. The owner wants to sell. The neighbour doesn´t want any new people around. Some time ago when the road comittee in this area was having a meeting the members joked with this man and told him that he ought to come up with some rare kind of sponge so that they wouldn´t have to have any newbies coming there. After this that guy told the town council about a very special kind of sponge only he has seen. They trusted him. Since it is difficult to find a place to build here we are anxious to do it right here where the owner wants to sell. We are also much into green living so if there is a rare sponge we also think it should be protected and it would have been safe in my garden. The problem is that no one seem to have seen this sponge and we wonder if it is only in this guy's head. It is strange in Sweden cause the owner of this land can do whatever he want with the area as long as he's not building a house.
We never thought the city council would object to this for a fungas noone care to go out and confirm is really there. Do we have people from the petticoat government ruling our city?!
This seem like a funny story that is not so funny for us and we would sure need some help to solve this.

So one thing to learn from this is that if you don´t want someone to build in sweden just come up with a funny sponge. It seems to work.

Audley End, Saffron Walden, England

Yesteday I was out surfin at Youtube trying to find a film from Audley End in Saffron Walden. We were 4 visiting this summer for a picnic concert and it was a great day even if it started raining after a few hours. I looked at this film and suddenly I saw a photo of us in white rain coats. It is Mr H showing cause we were so much into listening to the music a revival from the eighties with lots of great artists (tpau, belinda carlile, limal, james ure etc.)

I can really recommend the picnic concerts in England were they set it all up in a beautiful park with a castle in the background. No crowds. Every one is sitting and enjoying old times. http://www.picnicconcerts.com/

All the best from me
Anna

People aren´t prepared that the robbers are in the bank

Something that seemed so difficult to understand has suddenly become pretty clear to me. I am talking about the savings 70% of the Swedish people are doing in funds for the retirement: Tonights show of “Uppdrag granskning” (a Swedish TV-show that investigates supposed injustices) showed that Swedes rank in the top all over the world when it comes to this form of investing money. They are putting all of their savings into pension funds and at the end they realise that they have given away approx 38% of their money to the bank because of all the fees?! Is this what we want to do?
They explained a lot of things in this show last night like noone are supposed to understand where the bank got their index from. They just want you as a customer to believe that you have put your money in a good place and feel safe even if the funds are hitting an all-time low. That is what they use this index to. They just want the reader to see the headline and that is meant to give you a good feeling. The journalist asked a retired CEO of a bank department, if he and his wife could understand the meaning of the information that followed with the fond payment at the end of the year. And not even they could understand the essence of the information. The reflection after realising what the real profit was: that they were trying to hide it and to make the fees invisible. As I see it the only winners here are the banks. Yesterday I was thinking about saving more, but now I am certain that I should save in other forms (like in the matress) or spend the money, but to do it myself. I can lose a great deal of money and I wouldn´t have lost anything if I would have done that since I don´t need to pay the bank fees any longer. Like one of the guests at this show said: “People aren´t prepared that the robbers are in the bank.“

All the best from me
Anna

How to be more Danish

Imagine yourself 6 billions of ants walking around in a small space. They are walking in groups in a hurry to be in time at a spot at a certain time. Some of them are carrying special leaves from certain trees and are valued higher as a member in their community because of this. This sounds silly for us looking at them from above. They spend time in groups and in each group the patterns are important. Everyone must follow the stream, otherwise you´ll not be accepted. When you go down into one small group of one little percent of this huge amount of ants they have their own language and their own traditions even if they are a small part of the big scenario of billions of insects. If one of the ants communicate a little differently from the rest of the group they are valued a lesser member of the group than the rest. They have to work harder and better to achieve the same status as the rest. When you look at the whole picture and have all those billions of ants walking around in groups you don´t understand why this little group can take it so dead seriously following the pattern in different ways. If you convert this picture into humans and their ways of living there is one thing for us Swedes to consider. We are rated high in the world as diplomats and employees. We are always very dedicated to our work and reliable. But there are some things I think we should consider in all of this. I am not saying that all Swedes follow this stream but we have a way of value members higher if they are alike and are doing like the rest.

When you dive into this community of time tables, status, values, languages and look around you, you can see that everyone is chasing that leaf or that language or whatever. I think for us Swedes it would be good to see everything from above once in a while. Perhaps we could loosen up a little bit and don´t take everything so seriously. Swedes have lots of good talents but we also have some we should get rid off. One of them is planing so much in details and be so deternminded in following our plan. We ought to reconsider our plan everyday and be more flexible. The world is moving faster and there is not time for timetables. I thing we ought to do more like the Danish. They are more relaxed at least from my experiences. They must be doing something right cause you are seeing danish companies everywhere and they are managing to go from one success to another. I have heard many Swedes being annoyed of the Danish when they are changing their plans and look at the time table as something flexible. Perhaps this is a good thing. At least for us Swedes to learn. Some people seem to want to follow a time table, a budget, a prognosis or whatever when the most important task should be to get higher profit or be happier. Don´t you think?

Have a nice weekend
Anna

I wonder where is Madonna now when she needs her and not the other way around!

Here you see my favorite car and it is made by Neo. It is an embroidery. Neos Christmas gift for dad!

Everyone knows that teenager are revolting against their parents. That is nature when you are 16 and feel big as ever. I remember when I was 16-18 years old. I don´t think I ever felt as adult after as I did then. You are supposed to test your abilities without your parents. I did as well with lots of make up and strange clothes that I liked. This is common sense. Most of us tend to ask for advice from our parents or help, if we got into truble. This is reasonable because hopefully the adult lead the child the right way. Imagine yourself a child having so much money that you can buy anything in the world. Being one of the most famous in the world. Everybody is reaching out for you and you get everyone’s attention. Everybody is looking at you. Madonna is wearing your name on her shirt at a concert. It is natural that you end up with people who cares only about money around you. You are an easy target.
These are not good parameters for a young person and there is a big risk that this person get stuck with people trying to feed on you and your fame. I don´t think anyone of us parents would like our child to be in that situation.

I am of course talking about Britney Spears. What could her mother do?! I don´t know much about the history of this girl but something tells me that her mother and people who care for her haven’t had the ability to reach her. Britney’s life has become very tragic and it is not strange that it has come to this when she has been exploited at such a young age.

I am not much for her music and I have never identified with the characters in any of her videos. I guess there are a lot of men drooling while seeing her dancing. She has been a product of men in black suits and she has given them a lot of money. Where are they now?

Lately I have really come to feel sorry for her. Being a mom you suffer when you see someone get hurt like she has been, and loosing the most important she got in this wheel of commerce: her children. From what I understand she hasn´t been the best mum but she is the mum and she is in a very delicate situation with everyone’s eyes on her. I can´t imagine myself being in her situation. I wish more people around her thought more of her best than how much money they can earn on her.
The worst thing I have seen is this site where you can bet on when she will die. That is awful. What kind of people do that? I wrote about a line you shouldn´t cross morally while buying things. This is surely such a line. I read a quote yesterday where a guy said; “Please keep her alive, otherwise they will play her songs for weeks”. It is not a nice society we live in.

I wonder where is Madonna now when she needs her and not the other way around?! I wish I was Madonna just to be able to help this poor girl. Cause I don´t think she will listen to many people today.

Turn this wheel around and make a nice thing for someone you don´t have to today.

Sleep well
Anna

A slogan sounds cool but no one understands it

I read an article about Richard Branson in Time Magazine today and he seems like an inspiring person with a fresh mind who goes his own way successfully and also without following the stream.
He has aeroplanes flying all over the world and instead of flying less he proclaims to fly more and pledge that 100% of the profits goes to developing clean new fuels. He plans to fly one 747 using clean fuel next year to prove that this can be done. This guy also has dyslexia and actually thinks that this has helped him in his work. In his company they use normal language instead of using phrases that nobody understand, like “financial service industry”.

Without mentioning any companies here in Sweden I think this would be something that really would help advertsing give more results. Use language and words we understand and don´t make it so complicated. We don´t have the time for that. Sometimes it seems as if a slogan sounds cool but no one understands it, it’s better than the other way around?! Is it? You tell me? What also is cool with Branson is that he hardly ever says “no”. He is known as “Mr. Yes” because whenever someone comes up with an idea he encourages that person to try it out within reasonable limits.

Mother called me last week and told me; “Anna you have to stay up to see the stars on the Castle tonight?!” I was a bit surprised cause the TV-show was due at 23.40 and I go to bed at the latest at ten. Sometimes I don´t know what she is thinking. The TV-show was about old stars. If you are a Swede you know them and if you are from abroad you might know some of them: Britt Ekland, Peter Stormare, Arja Saijonmaa, Jan Malmsjö and Magnus Härenstam participated in this show. Mother’s urge almost made me laugh. I never have the time to see TV-shows and suddenly there is a demand from my mother that I have to see these grand old ladies and men. I told her I wouldn´t, but for some reason I sat by the TV at 23.00 waiting for the show to start that evening. Everyone except me were sleeping in our house. Or should I say I was half asleep as well. Afterwards I must say that it was interesting for me as a Swede to see these people talking about everything they have been through and done, even though It seemed a bit like bragging, but you know us Swedes; we don´t like when someone is giving themselves compliments. They should come from someone else. At this matured age like these people are in, 50-70 is my guess, they don´t care what media or someone else think so I must say that this was the most interesting reality show in a long time. Britt Ekland suddenly gave Arja Saijonmaa the evil eye and told her that she shouldn´t be so rude to a gentleman like Magnus and ask him such a personal quesiton. I couldn´t help watching the show after this and saw Arja Saijonmaa who fixed herself a beautiful cool tango dress while she told Britt to take some cheap shit on her, and made her dance while Arja was the instructor. Britt did it reluctantly. It didn´t looked good but she agreed and that was fun. The person who interests me the most in this group is Peter Stormare. He has a really nice personality and attitude. He is a cool Swede. I will check out what he has planned for the others in the next show.

Yesterday we had our first day in snow here in the Western of Sweden. The photo is from that beautiful day!

All the best from me,
Anna

How does your company get the best staff...

It is a new year today! When it is a new year I always think about how the year will look when I write the figures. Like when you see a painting with the name and the year under. I think 2008 will look great when I write it on some of my paintings. If I get the time to do any.

When I find articles about the company Google I tend to read them. I think that is an interesting company. I think they understand what many companies don´t today. At least here in sweden. I think quality and good staff comes from above. If the owner takes care of the employees, the employees will see their working hours as more than an job. I read that Google serves all kinds of food for free. They have a daycare within the company so that parents can go and get their kids and eat together. It is easy staying a while after working hours since the daycare keeps open whenever you need to leave the kids. Apart from all the benefits and fun these people have working at this company they also have a different approach to business. I read this in the latest article “TALK” I got when I was flying with Malmo Aviation a few months ago. When they decide if they want to release a new product they don´t ask how much money it will bring. They ask themselves how many users it can get. This is pretty unusual and the reason is that the company is run by technicians and not by s sales department like most other companies. Like they said: “If there is enough users, there will be money coming in the future”. Another fun thing I read is that the employees can use 20 % of their working week to develop a project of their own liking. They can work with an idea they have been thinking about and it can be anything as long as it’s a possible future product of Google. When you feel ready, a board will take a decision if you will get promoted with money and staff to realize your baby. It is not strange that this company comes up with so many great ideas.

I have a friend who applied for a job at this company. I think it would be fun just to hear about all these great things they are doing. I hope she gets to the interview and also that they realize that she is a great girl.

Have you heard about someone who ordered a bottle of wine and sent it out after tasting it? We used to joke about people doing that cause I’ve never thought one bottle of red wine were that different from another, and we never ordered anything but the wine of the house. After finding this Amarone Alpha Zeta wine, I have been talking myself warm about this experience of finding a special Amarone wine that I think is the greatest I’ve ever tasted. I don´t know if I am the reason but the this wine was impossible to find in any liquor store in our town a few days before Christmas. Perhaps a few others than me have discovered this excellent wine. When we visited our favourite restaurant last week Fred ended the order with; “Bring one bottle of Amarone in as well”. When they came to the table the bottle was another Amarone than the one they used to have. We got a bit dissapointed. Fred tasted, I tasted and we really looked disappointed. It was nothing wrong with this wine but the taste was very different from the one we had tasted a couple of weeks ago. The waitress told us that they were out of the old one and this was the replacement. It was a bit embarassing but we had to send the bottle out. The waitress recommended another one, but there is nothing like this. It has such a nice raisin taste.

Let´s hope 2008 will be the best year ever!
Anna

It doesn´t feel like Christmas this year

Written 22´nd of December.
This Christmas has been pretty smooth. Not many Christmas gifts to buy and we are not celebrating in our home. We are not travelling far to our family. Yet I can´t find time to do the usual things. My Christmas cards are still laying in the kitchen. I knew this was coming so I am aiming for a new year card this year.

It doesn´t feel like Christmas this year. It is pretty warm outside and not a single snow flake is around. This morning we had our Chrismas brunch with our dear neighbours and friends. It is nice to start the Christmas weekend by sitting at a table full of food and just take it cool and chat. The children were playing and opening presents and had their fun for the day. We compared the gift we got from the companies where we work and F told us he got an Olympus digital camera with 7megapixels resolution. All and every one of those from his employer. Not bad. I wouldn´t mind getting an extra camera. This thing with buying gifts to the employees must be difficult for the one responsible. They can never find something that everyone like. I couldn´t imagine what that might be. Money? Free time? I don´t know what I would buy. Something extra special I think. Glass or hand made stuff. I wouldn´t like my employees to asscociate my company with cheap shit. Maybe thats why I am having this webshop. I like quality and hand made stuff with nice design.

The funniest things with Christmas has nothing to do with yourself. It is to see Christmas through childrens’ eyes. They believe Santa is really coming and they behave cause I would tell Santa otherwise. Today Neo who is fully into learning the Swedish language got confused about Polkagris (candy) and gris (pig). I don´t think about that these words are almost the same but very different. Anyway my mother suggested he make a pig (gris) in marzipan and Neo made a polkagris stick in marzipan. That was the first I have ever seen. He doesn´t like marzipan and let me have the whole creation. I didn´t mind eating it. It was very delicious.

Today the postman delivered the post on a Saturday. That only happens the Saturday before Christmas day. We got some cards today. I have been eager to send cards past few years but this year I am just enjoying others. It is fun to see all crativity among everyone.

Santas with cotton candles in their hair

Today I am looking forward to seeing my cute little son and daughter dressed as small Santas with cotton candles in their hair. Today it is Lucia’s Day. It is the day when all cities in Sweden have choosen their own Lucia and she sings Christmas carols with candles burning in her hair. The children form a line with Lucia first and usually there are some starboys and small Santas aswell. My kids couldn´t decide what to be so they are a combination of Santa and Lucia. Usually it is girls who get to be the Lucia but I encourage my children to be whatever they feel like without thinking about gender.

We have been up early to listen to this fantastic song and eat Lusse buns.

All the best from me to you
Anna

Stories from real life are the most amazing ones

When I choose books to read I tend to always read books from real life. I think fiction has to be realistic and the real stories don´t have to. That is why the stories from real life is the most amazing ones. I often think about different personalities I meet during the days. They most often make me laugh. I have one of them at work. Tall guy with proffessor hair, a bit like the Einstein haircut. Look as if he hasen´t left the computer during his whole life. He has to have everything his way. The world has to change if he wants that. He is that stubborn. He almost never ask anything and when he does he whisperers. He loves cookies but he never brings any himself. He is brilliant at working with computers, almost nobody can compete with him there. He can have all his habits as long as he does what he is good at. Talking zeros and ones.

The Nobel Prize party is taking place tonight. A lot of Swedes are sitting by the TV looking att the ceremony taking place. Usually I watch some of it and it is always fun to see our king and queen and there are a lot of discussion of what she is wearing. I would love to be invited to this some time. Like I said this morning. I have to wait until my daughter or son is receivning the Nobel price... and I will probably do it from above then.

The Nobel price winners often describe how fantastic and also scary it is to be awakened by a white dressed girl with candles in her hair. The Swedish Lucia is always singing for the winners at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm. They enter the rooms when the guests are in their beds early, early.

I have no clue of what to do as a christmas card this year. I have no time and no idears... yet. I post one from 05 on the top to inspire myself a little bit.
Have you made all yours?

All the best from me
Anna

Matrix in real life...

We had guests coming over for dinner last Saturday. This is a family of four. Usually we have dinner together once every six months where we talk, eat and drink lots of wine. It is a nice evening for both of us and our kids. When they arrived with their car and parked in our carport their little boy asked why there were so many cd´s hanging from the roof. His mother and father looked up and saw 20 shining cd´s moving in strings. The father answered that it is because the family don´t want birds to sit there and leave anything on the cars. “They want to scare the birds away.” The boy nodded cause he finally understood. After a few seconds he answered. “Hm, so the birds fly away when the music start to play? Everyone laughed and I think it is lovely to hear stories like this of how children think before they know too much.

I read at expressen.se webpage about a young girl who saved 23 newborn Iceland horses today. In iceland they get the horses pregnant and then they empty their blood cause there is some enzymes in the blood that are used in meatproduction. I think it is a little “Matrix” over this story. When the little foal is being born it is sent directly to be slaughtered. This Swedish girl saved 23 foals who arrived by plane in Sweden yesterday. A honorable thing to do. I think this is a reminder for many of us. I think it is important to think about what we consume and also be aware of how this is being done. Perhaps we can spare some of these habits just for moral reasons.
One can always ponder over if it is necessary to develop medicals, machines, food and clothes for human beings. I think many of us understand that this probably must be done but there is a moral line somewhere when we don´t care about much more than money and ourselves. I think you and I have to decide where that line is and try not to cross it. My line is drawn exactly where I don’t eat baby animals. You might think this is silly but I think why should I buy that when I just as well can have something else on my plate? We are doing some nasty things by buying products we don´t know much about. Some of them is for a good cause. I think this would be one to start with in Iceland.

When it comes to relations with other people there have been a lot of friends through the years. Some of them for a long time and some I have been trying to avoid after meeting them once. I haven´t always acted the best way but I tend to reflect, think and compare and somehow I think I learn how I want to change that way. I have grown to be more Anna nowadays and hopefully also a better person. If you know me you can let me know what that is . I think we all search for different things in relationships but joy and respect is of great importance for me. We all seem to be short of time so it is nice to know what we are looking for in a relationship and skip relations were you don´t get it. I have been more into that idea after growing older. Some people seem to leave a smile on your lips and some people make you need a long nap after spending time together. It is just to find those waterwholes. I had a friend who called once in a while and used me as a garbage container. She nagged and nagged of how unfair life was. Every call started the same way and the subjects were almost always the same. She wasn´t satisfied with her life. She did this for some time and she seldom showed any interest for my life so It felt good when I told her I needed a time out from her friendship. Every time I hung up the phone I was totally empty so it was a great feeling in doing that.

I have another friend who spend all her time with working issues and friends. She forget about her family. That is sad. I remember when I found out that she didn´t even visit her old mother on her birthday or around it. She left her a parcel outside her door when she was travelling through in another purpose. She almost never participate in family gatherings. She doesn´t have any children and can really focus on herself and her needs and she has grown to be really self-centered. Like she said once when I asked her about how she sees her life. She is happy with her life since it is so rich and interesting. I see clearly that we are different but that doesn´t mean she doesn´t have anything that interest me. She does but I must say I am glad that we´re not family!

Enough about me trying to be Doctor Phil.

All the best from me to you
Anna

Just keep the story company

The photo above is a photo of me. If I should belive a website were I described myself and they showed me how I look. It is a pretty nice photo!

While I am sitting here by the computer I feel something unusual in my belly. It feels as if a new part has sneaked in there without me knowing. I think you think it is a baby but I know it isn´t. I think this is a result of too many buns these past few years and since we bought a big car 3 years ago I have gotten a bit lazy. I tend to use the car all the time instead of walking. I used to be a walker. I could walk 30-40 kilometers without any problems. I remember the first time my brother let me walk with his friends when they were training for Nijmegen marsch were they walk 30km every day in 4 days. They had planned to walk a short stroll of 30 km around Borås. I didn´t know what to expect cause I never knew how far I walked when I walked so I kept a really low profile. After a kilometer the leader of the group MR O told me that I was going to beg him to stop when we got back to this spot. I didn´t say anything cause we had a long walk in head of us and he was use of doing this and I wasn´t. He brought a lot of bottles of water since it was a sunny day. He drank all the time and smiled. We walked and talked. This guy MR O could make you laugh all the time both with and at him. Met some people I know on the way so it was a pretty pleasent time. After a few hours I started to feel a bit dumbness in my feet but if I didn´t think of it it wasn´t any problems. When we realized that we had walked 20 kilometers Mr O started to ask if we didn´t wanted any break. We rejected it. We didn´t bring any food so we didn´t saw the point in taking a break. Mr O somehow slipped to the back of the line and didn´t look to good. He complained about his feet aching. When we got to that special spot he just layed down and drank water so we all stoped. I didn´t say anything about what he said earlier. I didn´t need to.
After this I realized I had been training for this without knowing.

While I did the UN-deployment in Bosnia I had to borrow guys from the mine awareness team to keep up with my speed. Also because they were great company (you must send me a mail if you happen to stop by here). I have been lucky with my feets. They are ugly but they can walk long and without any chafed foot. I think that is the key. Nowadays it is the opposite. I get tired and like to take many rests. Usually I am satisfied if I walk a 10´km walk every Sunday on my walking quiz.

Fred have a story to tell but he never gets to it. He is waiting and when he decide to write a book just of the joy of doing it I think there will be a first chapter and it will be a part of a book I would love to see. If he just let that sole out a story would create itself within his hand. I think he just need to neutralilize and don´t think too much. Just keep the story company.

All the best from me to you!
Anna

I am not looking for superheroes

This year we celebrate the author Astrid Lindgren. She should have celebrated her 100th birthday on the 14th of November. Most Swedes are brought up listening to all of her books and consider her one of the most prominent among us. Some even think she ought to have received the Nobel price for literature. I have a friend who met her 10 years ago and I remember that he was surprised that the old woman was so witty. She was very funny and didn´t answer questions like one think an old lady should. She was more like a little girl. It seemed as if Pippi were somewere there inside this amazing lady. And that was probably so. I remember her voice as the ultimate voice of storytelling. Have heard it many times on tapes and tv-shows. Yesterday my little son of 4 years was sitting in the back of the car and said: “Mother do you know who Astrid Lindgren was?” I thought he asked me a question and I didn´t got the time to answer until he did it himself. “She wrote many books; Emil. Pippi, Karlsson, she lived in vimmerby etc.” He was talking about her like an adult about to another adult and I got really impressed. He told me that they had been talking about this grand old lady all week at the day care...

We always have a political discussion going on here at home. One of us is more left wing and one is more right wing. This often causes irritated discussions at the dinner table. But only on a fun level, we had the irritated discussions in the beginning of our relationships and noone wants to go there any longer. These past weeks there has been a lot of headlines in the evening papers about many ministers and aides in the Swedish government that are buying cleaning help, rebuilding their summer house without paying Swedish VAT. I guess you all know that we have pretty high taxes if you compare it to other countries. This makes it pretty expensive to do things and to live here. Whatever you need you have to pay tax on tax on tax etc. Swedish people seem to agree on buying some things under the table as long as you´re not a politican. From my point of view I´m not looking for any superheroes but if they think I am stupid I´m starting to get pissed. I think this is an important issue cause they set the standards for all and everyone of us. The strange thing when I look at the active famous politicians is that it seems to be women who has to leave their office every now and then. The media are double checking them all the time. If they bought a candy bar with wrong credit card that can be devastating. Is it that women admit more or is it because women make more faults?! You tell me. I’m just thinking that I’m beginning to see a pattern here.

By the way I got complaints the other day that the photo of the happy older woman was ugly and did not match with me?! It was my mother who doesn´t know anything at all about websites and computers. Suddenly from nowhere she told me that I couldn´t have that photo on the first side. I told her that I rather would like a photo of her and it sounded like she allowed me to take one of her, one of these days (usually she hides everytime I try to photograph her). Since she didn´t say no I took the chance and updated the website with a small photo of her with the sunglasses by the newsletter link (she is also above this text). Just in case you wonder who that is.

I also changed the big photo to my former little lion Leo. I use to have a budgie named Theo and my sons name is Neo... A pattern here aswell?! I tend to like eo in all variants.

Now I am waiting for the snow to arrive!

Have a nice weekend!

Anna

I almost started crying ...

We went to Oslo this weekend! Fred and Hog had bought tickets for the band VNV Nation. I have never seen them before. Just listened to some of their music when Fred has been playing it here at home. One thing that surprises me a lot after seing them is that nobody seem to know who they are when I mention this band to my friends. After seeing them I can´t understand this. They have all the ingredients for being a hit band on the radiostations around the world. The singer is very charismatic and spreads strength to his audience. They are doing really cool music. This is an English band who was discovered by the Swedish band member in Covernant playing similar kind of music. I think there is lots of power in this music. I will put something for you to listen to from youtube on my update-page: http://www.vikingshop.biz/.It was also fun to experience the micro-phone dance and the baunce ball during the concert. It is not often me and Kick get to see these dances. They are only shown when music is at its best. Hog dance with his hand slowly in front of his mouth and Fred jump up and down like a ball in an rhythmic dance.

Norway was as fantastic as always. From not being there at all few years ago I tend to be a frequent visitor nowadays. Most of it is cause our friends Hog and Kick lives there. It is such a beautiful city that feels more like a small town since the unexploited green areas is close to the city centre and that is what I like. The king and queen have big areas were they let their animals walk and also people use it for walks. I also went by my old friend U’s house to check out her apartment. She is the same as I remember her. Lots of friends around her and always happy and things going on. Never ever a sad face there.

It isn´t often I feel fulfilled and want to see more and more when I go to a gallery or a museum but I have found one artist who’s work I love. It is the genious Gustav Vigeland. He made art like a god. Like Michaelangelo searched for the divine I think this man found just that again and again in his sculptures. I almost started crying while seeing some of his sculptures. I didn´t thinkt a man who created so much in his life was blessed with sharing this with a woman but after visiting this indoor museum I understood that he married one of his models. He fell in love with her beautiful hands. All and everyone of us who tried to create art with hands as focus know how beautiful a hand can be and also how difficult it is to remodel this part of us.

Vigeland has also made the medallion who is given in the name of the Nobel peace price and this year it is one of my idols who got it. A salute for Al Gore.

I bribed them...

Today I am tired of everything. Got a few thousands more on my salary today. They had miscalculated. This made me think of if I might should work more at the market department. It would be nice to have a bigger paycheck coming every month. I am very honest, if I hadn´t mailed directly and showed what was wrong on my paycheck I wouldn´t jave been able to sleep tonight. Such things make me really nervous. I don´t even have a credit card. I just want to have my own money and if I can I want to have pounds in my wallet, not use the credit card when I buy things. Me and Fred don´t have any club cards at any of the supermarkets. I don´t like anyone to know exactly what I am buying every month. I don´t know why I feel this way but I think there is lots of zeros and ones who know what I am doing enough already. It is a bit strange cause I am very open on the Internet but when it comes to credit cards and supermarket clubs my door is closed. If there is a shrink out there?! Could you please send me a diagnose.
Tonight I didn´t read any story for the kids. I bribed them. They agreed on laying in my bed looking at TV. This is why I am sitting here right now. They fell asleep and I won 60 minutes in front of the computer. Our mechanic came by this morning and told me that we have a huge bill coming in next week on our car. So there were goodbye to the saving money this month. I tried to smile since it isn´t his fault. Anyway today has been a long day. I slept over with 30 minutes this morning just cause I didn´t know how to set my alarm on the cellphone. GRR. I got the children to the daycare for their ghost party in high speed. They were going to meet a ghost today and eat ghost food. Sounds like fun to me. I woudn´t have to dress for that party I was already pale and sort of not there. After jumping and wawing goodbye outside the daycare I went to my job at the market department. We are moving to another smaller office in two weeks and the owner wanted me to sit there and work meanwhile they build the walls... I said no thank you and will be working at home during those days. Today my eyes feel as if they haven´t slept in a week. I went to the toilet to see if I looked anything like I feet today but I must admit that most of that tired feeling is coming from the inside. B surprised me and P with a birthday cake and gift to both of us. Very cute of him to do this. He had bought two bottles of wine. One of them were a bottle of Amarone Wine. I tasted the best wine ever a few weeks ago. I thought what the heck I never drink much so I ordered one glass of the most expensive wine they´ve got at my favorite restaurant. That was Amarone wine and I loved it. That is amazing cause I never tasted such a good wine before. That is worth finding. They don´t have exactly the same at our liquour store but they have similar so I am hoping on finding a second best.

Tomorrow Fred is coming home... Finally! The ECMOD show wasn´t that good he told me over the phone. Perhaps he won´t be going there so many days next time. No one is happier than me.

I try and rationalize my life when I can. Everything that can make my everyday life a little smoother is probably good, is my motto. Last week I bought lots of timers for my lamps. I thought it would be nice to come home when the lamps were burning in every window and when the night came they would turn off by themselves. A really good idea if you ask me. I put them on and set the timer. Everything was fine until I realized that the timers were set on some kind of randoom (sic!). We sat having a nice cup of coffee with our former neighbours Mac and Johanna when suddenly the lamps were turned off in the window. I told them I must have forgot to set the timer on the correct time. It probably thought it was bed time at this hour. After a few minutes I heard a clasp again and the lamps were turned on. J and M didn´t say anything. After one hour they were turned off again. I started to realize that there might be something wrong with the timers. When I woke up at 03.00 and decided to go and sleep in the guestroom since my children had occupied my bed there was a strong lamp burning in there. I just shut it down. Then the lamps were on and off randomly all night. My neighbours must have been confused these past weeks wondering why someone tend to turn on and off the lamps all the time.

I must admit that facebook is rather cool now when there are a few faces I recognize from before. Last time I checked I couldn´t find anything or anyone. This site has been spread all over Sweden for the past few weeks like a wild fire. 400 000 users only in Sweden. I guy warned people to use this website since the company owe all the information you write in there. In the future this would mean that you can go to an interview and the personell already got all information you ever written on facebook. I don´t know if this is something to be scared about but I think one should think twice before telling your story.

There was this competition for the best photoshot in borås sjuhard . I have sent 9 photos to participate. They will annonce the winners on the 16th of November at this address: http://www.fota-sjuharad.se/

Do you recognize the sculpture on the photo? I am going to visit this magnificent park this weekend again.

All the best anna