The Maldives

Some of you already know but I haven't told everybody that the place we're going to in March is the Maldives! I have always wanted to go there and for me this is my dream destination. I haven't heard anybody say anything bad about that place so I hope it's as good as it sounds.

We're going for two weeks but it will be another six months before we'll be there. We've booked an all inclusive deal with beach bungalows at the Kuredu Island resort. I really can't wait!

Flowers

Today has been a good day in work, I finally looked into a project that I need to know the details of since we're going live with it in a couple of weeks. Since I was part of a different project earlier this year I wasn't able to manage this project at the same time, but time has finally come for a catch up and some system preparation before the big day.

Tried out the food from a new place YouGo (or YoGo as it says on the sign outside ;)) on Svetsarvägen today, they do both salads and other meals. I picked up a salad with tiger prawns and a peanut butter cream that was lovely.

Later on this afternoon I got a call from F, he had been to a customer and wanted to come up for a coffee before he went back to his office. I went downstairs to meet him and with him he had these beautiful flowers. They are in pink and orange colours and they're so beautiful!

Thanks darling, I love you!

Facial treatment

On Friday after work I went to Blue Medi Spa to have a facial treatment and I was really looking forward to it. I never treat myself to things like that but I really should do that more often. My brother gave me a Live it voucher for my 30th birthday (that was a while ago - I know) and I used it for this facial at this lovely spa located at Kungsholmstorg. The girl who took care of me was lovely and so professional. I really enjoyed every minute of it except for when she extraced my blackheads. My god, that really hurts!

In the last year or so I have been getting a lot of spots and its difficult to know which products to use. This girl recommended some Dr Dennis Gross products for my skin, I might be getting them at a later stage. They're not for free so I have to think about it first. Does anybody know of any other good products or do you have any experience from using Dr Dennis Gross?

Pictures from Gotland and the wedding

As you know already I spent a few days in Gotland in the beginning of August and we got to be part of the beautiful wedding between Lisa and Johan. The weather was gorgeous and we all had a lovely time. I was amazed by how they had done up the farm house for this special day, it was absolutely fantastic! Lisa and Johan looked so happy and we all enjoyed the party until the early hours in the morning.

One of the days before the wedding we hired a car and went to Fårö to see explore the island. We stopped off at Kutens Bensin where we enjoyed some lovely crepes and we were able to sit out in the sun.

I didn't bring my camera to Gotland this time, but we were able to take some pics with the Iphones anyway and I also got some pictures from Maria and Marcus. Below you can find some of them.

Bikbok favourites

Bikbok have some lovely clothes in the stores right now. I'm very curious about their jeans Never Denim. They seem to have a really nice fit but I suppose I would have to try them on to know for sure.

I'm so happy that I was able to sell my jacket and a dress on Tradera yesterday. 665 SEK is ok for something that was just collecting dust in the wardrobe anyway :)

Early bird

This morning I had to get up at 5 o'clock since I had promised to give my brother a lift to the airport. He was heading to New York the lucky thing where he's going to take part in an ice hockey tournament with his colleagues from the fire brigade. I came in to the office at 7 o'clock and started working then to be able to leave earlier than usual. I was so tired when I got home that I went to bed for about an hour and a half. Now I'm taking it easy, I'm following the bidding on a jacket and a dress that I'm selling on Tradera. I seem to be able to get some money for it so it seems to be worth selling rather than just throwing it away :)

Since the summer holidays I'm trying to get back into the training routines again and I have been to the gym quite frequently. Even though I'm working my ass off, that extra bit of weight that I gained during the summer does not seem to wanna come off :( At least not yet anyway! On Monday I went to my first bodypump class in about 5 months and I was dreading it. Even though I used the lightest weights my whole body is so sore that I can't walk properly and sitting down and standing up is a big challenge! ;)

Tomorrow it's time for a spinning class again, the last time I went to that class was before the summer. I'm getting ready to sweat together with my idol Petra! :)

Lovely blouse

Louise gave me such a lovely blouse for my birthday - I absolutely love it! Herself and Maria went to Dublin on a shopping trip in July and as always they did a lot of shopping in Penneys. This blouse is from Penneys and I love wearing it. It has lovely details such as the grey/brown beads on the sleeves. I had seen Frida Fahrman wearing this blouse but it was more of a white colour, therefore I asked the girls to look out for it.

Last summer day?

Saturday a week and a half ago we went out with the boat again, I had almost forgotten how nice it is to head out with the boat :) We were only out once during our holidays. It looked like the weather was going to be ok this day so we invited my brother and my parents to come with us. We picked them up in Brunnsviken and stayed there for a while drinking wine and chatting. The weather was more than nice, it was perhaps the last summer day for this year!? :(

After a couple hours when we felt hungry enough we left Brunnsviken to go to Fjäderholmarna for a bite to eat. First we went through Djurgårdskanalen to spend some time on the boat and then we headed towards the harbour at Fjäderholmarna. We had a booked a table there and could sit out in the sun to enjoy a lovely dinner (as always when you're at Rökeriet!).

This day was a day to remember, when it's getting colder and darker this autumn this is definitely a day I will look back to. Thanks everyone for a lovely Saturday!

Homemade muesli

Last week I finally decided to make my own muesli after thinking about it for quite some time. I browsed through various recipes on the Internet but didn't find any that I liked 100%. Therefore I decided to create my own recipe that was based on what I had at home. I must say that I'm very happy with the result and it's so much nicer than any other muesli you buy in the supermarket. I let my darling taste it last Saturday when I made him breakfast in bed and he thought it was nice but he asked for more nuts, especially hazelnuts. I will have to take that into consideration the next time I'm making a load ;)

Katja's homemade muesli


7 cups of oatmeal
1 cup of linseed
1 cup of sunflower seeds
1 cup of pumpkin seeds
1 cup of coconut flakes
1 cup of pecan nuts
1 cup of cashew nuts
1 cup of almonds
dried blueberries
raisins
dried apricots
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of water
1 cup of honey
1/2 cup of cooking oil

Heat the oven to 200 degrees

First you mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl except for the blueberries, apricots and the raisins. Then you add salt, water, honey and cooking oil and stir. After that you put your mix in a bigger cooking dish or a baking tray and put it in the oven for about 30 minutes. Make sure you stir often to avoid it getting burnt.

Gröna Lund

At the beginning of July my dear friend Emmeli and her daughter Antonia came up to visit me for a couple of days. The last time I saw them was when I went down to Vrigstad in November last year and a lot of things have happened since then so it was definitely time for a catch up. They came up late on a Friday night and Emmeli and I got the chance to talk properly over a glass of wine which was lovely!

The next day I heard Antonia say to her mam that she wanted to go to an amusement park and since we had decided to meet up with F to do something altogether I thought it was a great idea to go to Gröna Lund :) After breakfast at my place we thought it would be nice to head into town to do some browsing in a few shops and as always we paid Panduro a visit. I bought some beads and made yet another macrame bracelet in a pink/orange colour the next day together with Emmeli who wanted to learn how to do them ;)

After a couple of hours we thought it was time for lunch and F joined us at Waynes Coffee, Antonia and F got on very well from the start. Then we took the car and went to the place Antonia so much wanted to go to. We all had a great time and it was perfect weather for it, not too cold nor too warm and it wasn't raining ;) We went on roller coasters, had cotton candy and laughed a lot. It was definitely a day to remember and I'm so glad Emmeli and Antonia wanted to spend a couple of days with us :)

 

Watching football

Tonight I'm watching the football match between Sweden and Ukraine and I'm looking forward to it. Came home about an hour ago, I've had my dinner and now I'm sittting in the couch ready to watch the match :) The plan was to make my own muesli tonight but I don't know if I have the energy, perhaps I'll do it after the first half of the match. I've wanted to do it for a while now and bought a lot berries and nuts that you can have in it when I went to Ica after work.

Today I went to the gym again, I did 30 minutes on the crosstrainer before it was time for an exercise programme that my physiotherapist gave me when I was there on Monday. I've had problems with my left knee ever since I did the half marathon in May. I tried to ignore the pain first but during the summer I realised that it's not worth risking anything. Therefore I've use the crosstrainer instead as well as doing power walks and spinning. I've only been able to run a couple of kilometres at a time due to the pain. In the last couple of weeks I've done 4-5 kilometre runs though so lets hope that it will get better. My physiotherapist said that it was good that I didn't do any extensive running while my knee was sore and that I seem to be on the mend. It is important not to be too eager now though and to listen to your body.

On Saturday I was supposed to take part in Midnattsloppet but I've decided not to do the run since my knee will probably just get worse. It was going to be my 5th time participating but I guess I will have to wait until next year. Instead my plan is to keep going to the gym to make sure my knee is getting better and to try to lose some of the weight that I managed to put on during my summer holidays ;)

The weather has been terrible today, a lot of rain and thunder and lightning. My outfit for the day was a pair of beige MQ chinos and a pink cardigan with black birds from H&M.

 

Grateful

Today was my first working day since the 8th of July, I wasn't really looking forward to getting up early this morning but everything comes to an end and so did our summer holiday. My darling and I have had the most amazing time and I'm so grateful for these four weeks that we've had together. We haven't been out with the boat that much which is a bit of a disappointment but we have been to Sicily, Åland and Gotland and we've also had lovely days together at home.

As I told you previously, Sicily was amazing. Our two days in Åland turned out to be fantastic too, we went out with the boat twice as the weather was great. We also spent four days in Gotland and went to a beautiful wedding between Lisa and Johan. They looked so happy and the after party was at a farmhouse in a barn. They had worked for weeks to make it look the way it did and I can assure you that it looked amazing!

F and I are currently planning our winter holiday, I will have to save my money from now on to make it happen but I'm positive it will be the most amazing holiday ever!! I won't tell you just yet where we're going - we have until Friday to pay the deposit ;)

Sicily

On Tuesday we came back from Sicily and we've had an amazing week over there! The weather was gorgeous so we did a lot of sunbathing as well as visiting Etna and enjoying the lovely Italian food. F and I really enjoyed each other's company and it's definitely a trip to remember. The only bad thing was that the time flew by so it was time to go home as soon as we arrived there, well that is what it felt like. Seeing Etna close up was cool, we went up 3000 metres above sea level. The night before we arrived in Sicily, Etna had a small break out and the airport was closed, but it opened up about an hour before we were going to land in Catania so we were lucky.

On Wednesday 20th of July it was my birthday and my darling and I celebrated together :) We went to a town called Taormina that evening and had a lovely meal; smoked swordfish for starters and then I had lobster for my main course :) We've had fresh fish almost every single night and one night we went to a restaurant called Sabbie D'Oro and had tiger prawns, lobster and the local fish - it can't get any better or fresher than that!

On the day we were leaving Giardini-Naxos and Sicily we got up really early to watch the sun rise - it was beautiful. All in all I've had a great holiday with the best company!