In loving memory

During Christmas I lost a close relative and dear friend. He was my uncle and an important part of my life. He lived alone and for the most part of my grown up life we have spent all kind of family gatherings together and among those an endless row of happy midsummer festivities and crayfish parties. He had a great sense of humor and was always close to laughter but also had a dark and very thoughtful side. For him mindfulness was a natural way of life. He was an artist and painted mostly in watercolor and oil. He also made sculptures and built fabulous and enormous model airplanes. He was a very creative and inventive man and his curiosity and will to try out new things an inspiration to me.


He died unexpectedly and his death has left me very sad and with a great sense of loss.

Dear Gert
I will miss your laughter
the way you could tell a story
the smell of your pipe tobacco
and the sorry sight of your old beat up car.

I will miss your generosity
your empathy for all living
your knowledge
and your kindness and warmth.

I will miss you terribly

Rest in peace
Jeanette

Candles

Christmas at my place is mostly about flowers and candles. Okay, I wouldn’t like to be without a Christmas tree either ( you can read more about that here and here) but if I only could chose the one thing then it definitely would be candles. Nothing beats sitting in the candle light sipping a cup of tea or a glass of wine watching the flickering of the light making strange shadows on the wall and feeling the holiday calm slowly take over your body and soul!

Up till now the holiday calm has been scarce I can tell you. I can’t seem to get to Christmas, just a million of things getting in its way. No flowers, no tree, no presents bought and no food yet made….I was on a speed track towards disaster ….the crappiest Christmas ever lurking in the shadows…..

That’s when its time to tell yourself to get a grip, load Grinchen in the DVD: player, and invite friends over for Glögg. Nothing beats Jim Carrey to make you feel completely sane! Tadah, problem solved!

Then the weather took care of the rest with lots of snow covering everything in fluffy white. That’s when you realize that life is good and that good enough is enough. The spirit of Christmas is all about spending time with your loved ones anyway and not about presents and food.

So dear friends, near and far I wish you all a great Christmas full of love and joy!

Jeanette

Little Miss Sneeze

Four days ago little Miss Sneeze moved in with us. Not permanently but over the Christmas holidays. She is one of the barn kittens that I have written about earlier and she was in great need of TLC. She had a very rough start in life…..At the age of three weeks she was found in the stable where she had fallen down from the haystack. Since she was motherless she moved in with Mrs Missy and the six kittens and Missy nursed her too. Later on we learned from the school Vet that she had broken most of her ribs when falling down. She is12 weeks old but she only weighs about 500 grams which is the normal weight of a four week old. She has a bad eye infection and sneezes. The plan is to nurse, feed and love her and when she has built up a bit more strength we are going to try and find her a really good home. The kids are trying to convince us that the good home is right where she is (aka our place) but hubby is dead against it….and very hard to win over. We will see.....

Take care
Jeanette

Can opener and heavy-duty tin snips

I like a challenge now and then and breathing new life into something old or thrown away is a challenge of my choice!. Furthermore it’s a very appropriate time to do so with the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen basically next door. I worry about the climate changes and have followed the reports from the conference but so far I think it has been way too much talk and way too little action. Right now I lean more towards micro activism ….trying to make a difference here and now through little things. …..and me making art and stuff with recycled objects sort of fits right in with that.

I like birds and I like red. I might dress like an undertaker (make you look slimmer….) but red has always been one of my favorite colors. Red is for love, friendship and warmth and to me that’s what life is really about. Okay, okay I want go all Woodstock on you…..

The challenge I made for myself this time was not only to deconstruct a tin cookie jar but also to see how many birds I could get out of the one jar.

I managed four birds, small winged messengers meant as gifts for dear friends. I actually ran out of inspiration instead of material, I still have the lid and the bottom left …..not bad eh? I decorated the first bird with vintage paper but later considered that cheating ( I am hard on myself….) so I made little messages using the text on the jar on the others instead.

Peace, Love & Understanding folks

Jeanette

Knit with attitude

Pretty in Punk: 25 Punk, Rock, and Goth Knitting Projects

Punk Knits: 26 Hot New Designs for Anarchistic Souls and Independent Spirits



In my teens I dreamt of being a punk rocker but never dared.....I lacked the right kind of attitude and my mother didn`t let me color my hair black either. But the music, the clothes and the fab hair fascinated me back then and in fact it still do. So when I found these books at the library my heart started beating. Now I have a chance to get pretty in punk just by starting to knit with an attitude.

Who knows I just might color my hair pink.....or have dreads...

or yet again......I might not!

Take care
Jeanette

To have it shabby or not.....

......thats the question!

I can’t decide whether I think shabby chic is overrated or not. When I look at all the web shops and blogs dedicated to shabby chic or French white or Danish white I feel a yearning as well as a light panic attack. Most of the homes are so perfect….everything in its right place and not an object to be seen that doesn’t match the designated theme. It makes me want to scream or secretly go there at night and place an ultra modern chair or

gall green plastic bowl among all the white finery. At the same time I wish that my house could look just like that, pristine, white and clean like a freshly mangled sheet but shabby chic doesn’t go that well with a shoebox shaped terrace house from the 60ies.

Come Christmas time my yearning grows bigger mostly due to all the Christmas magazines that I read. I mean it’s called a white Christmas for crying out loud! Or does that refer to snow? This year I think I will give in and have it both ways. A vintage like Christmas at the country house and a more modern Christmas in town. How is that for defying ambivalence?

Take care
Jeanette

Hard work is the cure for hard work....

I have just had one of those weeks with so much to do that the only thing that keeps you going without actually going insane is to focus on one thing at the time. If you just for one minute let your guard down and start thinking about the enormity of it all your heart starts racing and you end up in frustrated tears. Come Friday night I was speeding fast towards insanity….knowing that I had two more weeks of the same ( or possibly worse) to come before work got back to normal again. I had planed to get some work done during the weekend too but decided that I had to choose between taking a day off or call 911. Well, 112 actually in Sweden.

So I drove down to the country house instead, the sky blue and the sun shining and I could feel my shoulders sinking the closer I got. Hubby was already there building a room on the second floor and I brought him freshly baked bread from the local baker and was greeted with a huge smile and a hug. Life suddenly felt so much better. A feeling that lasted about an hour or so and then the delivery came…..



How could I have forgotten? The firewood we ordered a few weeks ago to take us through the winter and that now had to be stored in the barn. Oh well, I told myself with a cheerful voice (can you hear the irony here?) this beats sitting in front of a computer all weekend….. 3 hours and 26 wheelbarrows later I was done! I was beyond tired but stood and looked with great satisfaction at the two neat piles of firewood in the barn. Do you know what the best of it was? Not once during those three hours did I think about work.

In the evening we drove over to my mothers to celebrate her birthday and I was pampered with a home cooked meal and birthday cake. YUM! And boy did I brag about my firewood !!!!!

Since both my mother and I are crazy about cats I made her one.

In moss.....

Hope you have a great week!
Jeanette


PS Speaking of cats, do you remember Missy`s kittens. Here they are all seven of them in Johannas lap....

7 weeks old but still a bit tiny the Vet said last week so now they are getting cream cheese and kitten food as well as Missy nursing them. Cute aren`t they?