Time to breathe

Finally after two weeks on the go without a second to relax I have the time to breathe ;) I'm sitting in the couch watching the Nordic world ski championships in Holmenkollen. Had a good night sleep last night thank God, on Friday night I couldn't seem to sleep at all even though I was exhausted. Last night I was invited to Maria's birthday party in her apartment and it was a great night. She had even organised a music quiz :) I did my best to contribute but unfortunately my team was placed in the bottom..

The birthday girl :)

It has been a hectic week with a lot of tight deadlines and a lot of hard work. I also flew to London on Wednesday night to be participate in a meeting all day Thursday. When I left it was around -20 in Sweden and when I landed in Heathrow airport it was +11 - big temperature differences! We had a great meeting and I got to meet a lot of my European colleagues. One of the girls who was there turned out to be an old colleague of mine - Daria. We worked together at Adobe Software systems in Dublin when we were both living there, it's a small world!

View of London from the plane

Today I'm gonna clean up in the apartment and take care of all the laundry, I also have to iron a lot of my blouses and shirts (hate it!) :( Later on this evening I'm heading over to mam and dad for dinner and we're gonna watch the photos from their Kenya trip which I'm really looking forward to.

Mums mums

Today it's Daniel's birthday and what could be a better way of celebrating his birthday than to do it with "Mums mums"! I think everybody at least in our department knows about his LOVE for these Mums Mums :) I had two of them in the afternoon and must admit it was ages ago since I had them the last time. I've hardly had the time for any break today due to our tight deadlines for the project. But everything is coming together now and even though I have a good bit left and might need to work tonight I feel that I have it under control and can submit the files tomorrow!

Mums Mums :)

Tonight I'm having the girls over for dinner and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm planning to serve them my gnocchi dish that I made for the first time a couple of weeks ago, we'll see if they like it as much as I did ;) I need to buy a few things at Ica Maxi first but should be ready for when they come over at around 6pm.

Earlier on today I went over to St Eriks Bilplåt to have them look at my car and the damage from the crash. The guy I spoke to said he thought they were going to be able to fix it so fingers crossed. I have to drive around with my damaged car for another while but I have booked a time now for when I will be leaving the car with them for repair. It will be on the 7th of March.

My body is sooo sore today efter the bodypump class yesterday, I can hardly walk ;) I'm planning on going down to the gym at lunch time tomorrow for a run so hopefully I will feel better again after that. Tomorrow afternoon I'm flying to Heathrow airport with work since we have a meeting at the Radisson SAS hotel nearby all day Thursday. I thought it was better to fly over the night before so that I could have a good night sleep without having to get up too early on the Thursday. Hopefully I won't have to work too much tomorrow night at the hotel either ;)

New week already

Where does the time go? I was so happy it was the weekend on Friday and now it's all over - again! I'm feeling a bit stressed out about all of the stuff I have to do for work this week. Meant to work today but haven't done a thing yet. Instead of sitting up all night I'm thinking about having an early night so that I can get up early tomorrow to get things done. Fingers crossed and it'll all work out!

Had a lovely afternoon today, walked around Lötsjön in Sundbyberg and then had coffee at Gröna Stugan afterwards. It wasn't as cold as it was last night but I had put a lot of warm clothes on to avoid getting too cold. I was fine during the walk but when we sat down inside I just couldn't seem to get warm. Had to have a hot shower when I got home but now I'm feeling fine in my fleece jacket and my warm socks :)

Yesterday I went to the gym for the first time this week and ran 5 kilometres. I haven't kept up with the training in the last couple of weeks but I'm hoping to catch up this week and I'm dying for a bodypump class again. My training in the last few weeks have looked like this:

Week 5
Monday: Bodypump 55 min
Wednesday: 5 km run - 10,5km/hr
Thursday: 7 km run - 10km/hr

Week 6
Sunday: 12 km run - 9,7km/hr

Week 7
Saturday: 5 km run - 10km/hr

Last night I met up with Maria and Sofia and we got a take away from the local Chinese restaurant. I haven't seen Sofia for a while so it was nice with a bit of a catch up. Later on we watched Melodifestivalen together and saw Eric Saade go straight through to the final in Globen with his song Popular. Stayed until midnight and when I went home it was -20 outside, I was freezing!

Love wearing eye shadows and different colours but I mostly use my brown/beige shades from Make Up Store. Found a lovely eye shadow from Mac called Expensive Pink that I like, might get it the next time I'm in town :) Now I'm gonna clean up a bit while listening to David Gray!

Sunny Saturday

I just love waking up on a Saturday and you know you can stay in bed for as long as you want, I woke up the first time at around 7 o'clock this morning but fell back asleep and didn't get up until just before 11 :) The sun is shining outside, I'm sitting in the couch watching the repeat of På Spåret. There is so much I want to do today but I will probably only have the time to do half of the stuff. I have a lot of food in my fridge so I need to do some cooking. I would love to go for a longer run again but don't know if I'll do that today or tomorrow. I need to clean up in the apartment, especially in the kitchen. I need to catch up by listening to our cd from Sjung Nu since I missed the last session on Monday and I haven't listened to what I recorded the first time I was there. I went to pick up the February kit from Molly's Scrapbooking yesterday so I'd love to sit down to do some scrapbooking but I definitely don't have time for that. I need to do the laundry, but don't know if I'll find a time slot and I have to work today for sure. Can anybody sqeeze in some more hours in the day please???

Bought a product from Kiehl's at Kastrup airport on Tuesday when we were travelling home to Stockholm, it's called Midnight Recovery Concentrate. It's a mixture of essential oils and you only take a few drops that you put directly on the skin. It's supposed regenerate, repair and replenish the skin barrier while you sleep. So far I like the product, we'll see if I can notice any difference after a few weeks usage. I think I look at least 1-2 years younger already after a few days! (maybe not ;))

Wishing you all a lovely Saturday!

Favourites from H&M

I'm getting worse and worse at keeping up with the blogging, I think the reason for that is that I'm up to my eyes at the moment. Both in work and after work so I just haven't had the time, sorry about that. It's finally the weekend again but I'm not looking forward to it as much as I normally would. The reason being I have to work! We have some really tight deadlines for next week and I'm also travelling to London for a champion user meeting that I have to prepare a lot of stuff for. I hope that if I just get some proper sleep, then I'll be able to get things done without having to spend too much time on it.

Tonight I'm just chilling out at home, time to watch Let's Dance again. In a couple of weeks time I'm gonna watch the show live, since we got tickets from work - looking forward to that! This afternoon I went to my hairdresser Emma, I was in desperate need of a hair cut. Got some blonde highlights done as well, now I just need a tan ;) Myself and Maria have just decided to book Lanzarote for a week, week 14 to be exact. My request was approved today and now I finally have something to look forward to!

Had a look around in the H&M webshop today and they have some really nice stuff. Some of the pieces that I like the most are:

A lot of dresses I know, but I just can't get enough of them :)

Happy Valentine's Day

Spending Valentine's Day in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere, I'm in Middelfart in Denmark. Maria and Lena are with me and we've just had a romantic dinner together. Well, I'm not sure it was that romantic but we've had dinner anyway :) It has been a loooooong day as we had to get up at 4 o'clock this morning. It felt like a big joke when I had to set the alarm last night for 3:50am. The flight was at 6:10 from Arlanda airport and luckily there was no delay so we arrived in Copenhagen on time. We went to buy train tickets straight away as we had to go to Middelfart from Kastrup airport and we checked the time and jumped on the train. Then it was just time to relax (we thought) as the train journey was almost 2,5 hours. But after a few stops, we heared that there was a problem with another train at the next station so we could not move on. A lot of people left the train to jump on another one but we stayed since we were sure it would just take a few minutes and then we would be on our way to Middelfart again. It was just that we were on the wrong train and went the wrong direction! This guy gently told us when he heard us talking ;) Ha ha so it was just to jump off the train again to go back to Copenhagen central station to switch to the correct train. Luckily we found our way back and only had to wait a few minutes before the right train arrived :) Finally we could relax!

Arrived to Middelfart at around 11 o'clock, we had been travelling for 6 hours by then. For the rest of the day we've had some good pricing sessions but we're all extremely tired now I can tell you.

Had a lovely weekend by the way, on Saturday myself and Jessica walked around Kungsholmen together and had a coffee at one of the cafés at Fridhemsplan afterwards. I had to dig out the car before I could take it to Jessica and it took me some time but I managed in the end ;)

Fantastic sushi

Last night myself and Emily had booked a table at Ljunggrens restaurant to have some sushi together. We ordered some gorgeous Maki rolls, one with tempura fried prawns and another with salmon and avocado. It was absolutely gorgeous and I couldn't stop eating. We had a lovely bottle of white wine with that and had a bit of a catch up since we haven't seen each other that much lately. Annica joined us later on and we were chatting away about all and nothing ;) I took the tube home and had decided to take the connecting bus from Alvik but missed it by 10 seconds of course so I jumped into a taxi instead. It was really cold last night and I just wanted to go home!

Today I'm gonna have Kim, Lisa, Benjamin and my brother over for dinner. I've just made up my mind about what to cook for dinner and I hope they'll like it, it's gonna be a three course dinner of course! I really want to head to the gym as well since I haven't been there since last Thursday but I don't think I'm gonna have time for it :( I know I'll have time tomorrow anyway but it doesn't feel good not to go for over a week..

What a fantastic trip

I'm back from an absolutely fantastic trip to Duved/Åre with the best gang of colleagues :) We've had so much fun from start to end. The fact that I haven't slept much at all doesn't bother me, I'm catching up on my sleep now instead ;) Started the trip by jumping on the night train on Thursday night, we had a before ski drink together and chatted to each other all excited about the trip. Didn't stay up too late since we wanted to get some sleep before we arrived to Duved on Friday morning, I can't say that I slept well but got a few hours sleep anyway. As soon as we got there we walked to the hotel and checked in before we had some breakfast together. I shared a room with my partners in crime Jessica and Petra! After breakfast it was time for some skiing and we stayed in Duved for the day. Funnily enough we didn't see many people in the slopes, but it was a fun day and I was happy that my skiing boots were so comfy :)

Later on in the afternoon we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner, squeezed in in one of the rooms and had some drinks beforehand. After dinner we enjoyed ourselves in the hotel and I played some table tennis :) Then it was time to head out to Åre village. We went to one place first where we had some drinks and later on we headed to Bygget. At Bygget we listened to Marmeladorkestern when they played and danced away!! Had a great time that night and didn't get to bed until 4 o'clock!

On Saturday the plan was to head to Åre for some skiing and the bus left at 8:50 which meant we had to get up at around 7:30 to get some breakfast. I was a bit tired but was looking forward to going skiing in Åre. Jessica met up with a friend of hers so myself and Petra did some skiing together. Met up with the rest of the gang at a lunch place in the slopes later on and had a lovely goulash soup. After that it was time for some more skiing before the after ski at Fjällgården. There were loads of people there!

When it was over myself and Petra went down to the bus stop to get back to Duved. I was tired, cold and hungry and that stage and my legs were a bit sore from the skiing. Luckily Petra rang Jessica because instead of having to take the bus they came to pick us up with a taxi - happy days! Came back to the hotel and bumped into a "black and blue" Emil. He had had quite a bad crash earlier that day and his lip was slightly bigger than normal ;) Even though he was in so much pain he was in a good mood and I was laughing my heart out when he was telling his story, poor guy! Had dinner at the hotel altogether again and headed out to Bygget again that night. Everybody was in good form and we were dancing loads!

On Sunday everybody took it easy, a lot of people stayed in the hotel to chill out. Myself and Petra were determined to go skiing so that is what we did. It was snowing that day and the slopes were so nice and soft :) Came back after a few hours to pack and get ready to go home. Took the train, which of course was delayed, at 18:45 and had some dinner in the hotel before we left. I was absolutely shattered at this stage and went to bed at around 20:00!! Slept for a few hours anyway and at 3:45 we arrived to the central station. I got up and took a taxi home so I could get ready for work, there was no point in going to bed just to get up again so I got into work at 6:30!

All in all it was a great trip and I'm so happy to have so many lovely colleagues. Mats and Karin had done a great job organising this trip and I'm already looking forward to going next year again!!

Next stop Duved

The time has come to head to Duved/Åre with my lovely colleagues, I've been running around all night trying to pack everything. I hope I haven't forgotten anything important. Painting my nails right now, it's all about beauty in the slopes as well ;) Gonna head over to Petra in a second and then we're taking the tube into town. Our train leaves at 23:50 but we're meeting up beforehand for an after work/before ski session. Me like. Keep your fingers crossed I won't break any legs now, here we come!

The group in Vemdalen last year

May I present..

..my lovely gnocchi dish that I made Monday evening. I ate it that same evening, brought it for lunch yesterday and had the rest yesterday evening. That means I liked it! :) I fried chicken in a frying pan with some oil, crushed a clove of garlic with my garlic press and put in a teaspoon of sambal oelek. I then added gnocchi and after a few minutes and put everything in an oven dish. I spread a packet of feta cheese on top of everything and put the dish in the oven for about 10 minutes (used the grill function). When the feta cheese had a bit of a colour it was ready to be taken out. Served it with a simple lettuce, red onion and cucumber sallad and poured a little olive oil on top of it. Yummie!

After work today I went for a 5km run on the threadmill, I'm planning another run tomorrow at lunch time as well. Then I'll be able to head to Åre with a good conscience. I had planned to start packing tonight but I haven't been able to get up from the couch yet ;) In about an hour I'm gonna head to Arlanda to pick up my mam and dad. They're back from a two week trip in Kenya and I'm dying to hear everything about it. Got a postcard from them today :)

Love my baggy jeans from Vero Moda and wear them very often at the weekend. Since we don't have a particular dress code in work and I don't meet any external customers normally, I wear them into work some days as well. Monday was such a day and I created a new combo; baggy jeans with my shiny jacket in a lovely green colour and my new brown plaited belt both of which also bought in Vero Moda but more recently ;)