Remember in my New years post how I mentioned that I want 2014 to be the year of creative bravery? For that to work I have to go a little bit deeper and I decided I need to write about a few things that have kept me from being brave through the years. I spend a lot of time worrying and going over things in my head and lately all those thoughts have landed in a sort of conclusion about myself. Some of these things I've known for years but I think I have needed to go through it many times to see all of it. I'm not a psychologist and I don't think even they are especially good at analysing themselves but I really have thought a lot about this and it feels like I have made some progress.
In order to be brave I need to break through some quite stubborn parts of my brain that I've held onto for far too long and that is connected to my self esteem.
So let's do this like a true therapist and go back to my childhood. Ha!

When I was little I was bullied quite hard. I had red hair, freckles, hated sports, wasn't skinny, talked a lot, wore whatever I liked (even if that happened to be my mother's beautiful 70's hippie blouses), and maybe I was a little bit different from the other kids in my class, I don't know.
It was especially hard between the ages of 9 to 12 and the memories I have from that time have absolutely affected how I see myself today.

One of the things I remember is never wanting to speak up in class because every time I did I got laughed at, resulting in me hating everything I wasn't already good at. Because of that I felt safe in theatre, dancing and singing; things I had done by myself for such a long time that I felt nobody could take it away from me. I went to dance classes and was part of a theatre group after school and that was a true haven for me! Especially theatre where I could be anything and everything, I even played the role of the popular girl in class in one play and it felt incredible that the drama teacher let ME play that part since I was as far from that as you could get.

In school on mondays my classmates told me that the only good thing with being back in school after the weekend was that they could hit me again. They never really hit me, just talked a lot about it, and most of the bullying consisted of being mean to me, freezing me out, talking behind my back, name calling, threats, all that sort of thing. And yes, the teacher knew all about it and all she had to say was that I had to give her the names of the bullies and she would talk to them "when she had some time over". Of course I couldn't give her any names since that would have just backfired and made it even worse for me if it got out that I had talked to the teacher.

I was always scared of doing things wrong that would lead to my classmates ridiculing me so I stayed away from things I couldn't do. Like gym class. I was so good at avoiding gym class. I sat on the bench most days and when I couldn't lie myself out of it my classmates made sure I knew just what a failure I was by sending me back and forth when it was time to choose teams. I was always last, of course, and the team that "got"me always said something like "We don't need her, we can play better without her".
God, I hated gym class with all my freckled being.

When it was time to choose classes for 7th grade I had the amazing opportunity to take theatre classes instead of languages and that was such a relief for me because now I had one thing in school that I knew I was good at. It was absolute heaven.
That year we also changed school so the bullying sort of ended then and there. I wasn't one of the cool kids but I was mostly left alone and I had some friends and I started to feel so much better about going to school.

After all these years though one thing have stuck with me to this day. The fear of doing something I'm not already good at. This is a really big part of me actually. Everything I do I have learnt by myself or it was something I already had a talent for from the start.

Like my jewelry for an example. I started to look at jewelry making books but it felt like school all over again and there were rights and wrongs and I didn't need anybody telling me I was doing things wrong in my spare time, thank you very much! So I took a copper wire and made up a technique along the way. I love how my jewelry have evolved over time and I am incredibly proud of my work becuase I made it and nobody could say "You did this wrong". My work is mine and mine alone and that is the best feeling in the world.
One thing I'm not proud of though is that I get jealous of other artists quite a lot and a while ago I realised that this is connected to my fear of doing things I'm not good at. Doing something unique makes it safe for me so when I see somebody doing something similar I get scared that they are going to be better than me. Because of course they will be, and then I will be a failure and I won't have anything completely mine anymore. This is such a stupid way to think.
This hinders me from growing and it keeps all my great ideas locked up in my brain because if I send that email/if I make that product/ if I choose to believe in my ideas and those ideas get turned down then there's a whole class of 11 year olds laughing at me in my head.

This is so hard for me to write, you have no idea, because this is me as a 32 year old woman bullying myself like the tiny kids in my class when I was just a little girl and that is STUPID. I can't do that to myself anymore. I just cannot.
I need to stop bullying myself into fear and start getting my ideas out there because they ARE good and I AM talented and if I don't make mistakes I will never make anything new and interesting either and that is maybe the saddest shit ever.

So that is the reason for all this emotional bravery. Without emotions there will be no good art and I want to make incredible art and if I don't show myself in the process then that is NEVER going to happen. It might not happen in any case but at least I will be more honest with my feelings and I would have tried.

From my diary when I was ten.
"Today we had gym class in school and I wore a leotard. When I came down to the gym "X" said to me -Aren't you on a diet?
Then I ,of course, said -NO Why?
-Because you are fat, you could at least wear a t-shirt.
Wasn't that mean?"

I started writing in this diary when I was 9 and I am sure it helped me quite a lot. Still to this day I write every evening before bedtime.
One really nice thing about this particular diary is that I have written about David when we were a couple for the first time, when we were ten and eleven. I'm going to share that story with you soon.

Oh, and to write longer posts in english without being afraid of making a million errors was one of the things I have been scared of before so I guess I can tick that off the list now!

Two from when we drove to Österlen last week and the roads were dusted with wispy snow flowing in every direction and the trees only had snow on one side of their trunks.

Two extra luxurious breakfasts. One at Café Kagan where we always go when we're visiting Simrishamn, and one consisting of the delicious cardemom buns I made for David on his birthday the 21st.

Two self portraits taken with self timer (using the TimerApp).
One in the staircase at my work waiting for David to come pick me up after an evening shift, and one in my work room on the day when we came back to Gothenburg after our Österlen visit.

Today we found out the finalists in the Bloody Cuts film challenge and sadly our Lights out is not one of them. Our favourite one "Cut" was though so Congrats to the people behind that one, and to the other five too of course! It was very fun to be a part of this and hopefully we are still in the running for the other categories they plan to give prizes in.

I have been working all weekend and have a couple of days off now so I feel like it's friday today. Hope your weekend was everything you wanted it to be and if not: here's to a fantastic new week!

Yesterday started off with breakfast. This one, to be precise.

The kiwi fruit was exceptionally happy to be a part of my breakfast.

We were going to have friends over and David decided to remove some of the big snow lumps by the road to make it easier to reach the driveway. This house has no snow shovel so all he found was a regular shovel. I stood in the window taking photos and giving him thumbs up for the good work.

I felt like giving my face some makeup. Hello from tiny 70's style bathroom with sloped ceiling!

Had time for another cup of coffee before our friends arrived.

When they arrived we had (more) coffee and vanilla buns before we bundled up and went outside. The weather was EXTREMELY windy but we were brave.
Aili, Jonas and David took the lead with me staying behind to take photos. Like always.

The hen house. And look at the small house to the right, can you see the little face popping out from behind the hatch? It's the dog guarding the hens. She lives there and barks when someone passes. We yelled back to her until she stuck her head out to bark some more before going back in again. Haha, such a sweetie!

Aili almost blew away. Her scarf actually unwrapped itself from her neck and here she is fighting the scarf and wind.

Our tree!

The beautiful valley that you can see in this post from november last year.
Look at all that untouched snow! So pretty.

We decided to go up to the tree where we got married in august. Aili and Jonas were our wedding witnesses so it felt really nice to show them how the place looks now, five months later.

The hard journey up there. The snow was so thick in some places but that actually made it easier because it prevented us from slipping down the hill. Oh, and it was so windy here that I couldn't see if the photos were in focus or not so I just snapped away and hoped for the best. I still really like these photos because they show the struggle it was to get up (and later down) the hill in that much wind and snow.

Almost there!

Look how happy Aili was to have made it all the way up the hill!

David doesn't look too happy though. Because he left his hat and gloves in the house, and it was sooooo cold up there!

I think he thinks he looks cool.

Jonas covering Aili from the wind. So much love.

Heeeeej!

Aaaaah, I'm blowing away!

I really like this one. David took all three of these.

And now, prepare yourself for a little photo series...

Plopp! David got stuck in the snow!

Heeeeelp!


(Behind him I am laughing so hard I can hardly breath.)

Aili and Jonas: Huh!? What have you gotten yourself into THIS time?

Jonas and Aili skipping merrily over the fields

When we came inside we started working on dinner. We made butternut squash soup that turned out EXTREMELY SUPER DUPER EXTRA HOT! I mean it was insane. I usually make this soup and complain it isn't spicy enough but this time it was CRAZY. We added water and milk but it was still too hot. Very tasty but oh my, that was not how it was supposed to turn out.
After dinner we played Scrabble.

David thinking of his next move.

Aili contemplating.

David further into the game.

Jonas put the Galej in our evening. (Galej means party, but an extra festive and happy one, I would say.)

And that was yesterday. Aili and Jonas went home later in the evening and David and I sat in the sofa reading before we called it a night.
Such a great day!

Hej hej!
Being busy made me forget to take photos because never before has my iPhone album been so empty (Empty might be an exaggeration. There's still 1060 photos in there...)
But! There have been some moments worth documenting so let's take a look, shall we?

As my birthday gift my mother and I went on a fleamarket spree and I got this beautiful teapot. I have at least nine teapots already but since I broke one a week earlier I thought it was OK for me to get a new one...

Oh, and this is dinner for me. Popcorn and tea. There's nothing better.

One day I rearranged my side of our work room. It solved a lot of problems so I'm very happy with the result.

David and I went to Österlen and it was cold as heck in the house!

I made a fruit plate that looked and tasted amazing.

We ate roasted tomato soup and garlic bread while it was storming outside.

One day I woke up to this gorgeous light. It had been rainy and stormy the entire week so this was such a nice change!

It was quite cold that one day. This winter has been SO weird. It's like spring outside and two days ago I saw a Magnolia tree ready to burst out in flowers. I started yelling at the buds "STAY STILL IT'S STILL WINTER YOU FOOLS!"

We found a spooky tree and an INCREDIBLE view.

We also found an over cuddly kitten.

The day we went back to Gothenburg it was foggy.

Midnight picnic on the floor with tea and shortbread working on a flowery GIF.

The week before Christmas I attended the Christmas fair in the mall Nordstan. Here you can see me hiding from customers. No, not really. I was putting things like bags and ribbons and boxes under the table since that was my storage room of sorts.

All the jewelry displayed and ready!

On december 22 it was my last day at the christmas fair and it was David's and my 7 year anniversary. We went for a meal at a nice restaurant and on our way home we kissed in the elevator.

The rest of the night it was packing and fixing mayhem in our work room. The day after we drove to our families and left it all like this to deal with after the holidays. It was reeeally nice to leave it there but not so great to come home to. It's all gone now though.

Alfred and Astor the cat getting to know eachother.

I was working the entire night on New years eve so David and I celebrated a day early. It actually felt like New Years for real. We toasted on our balcony at midnight and watched Fireworks on my phone.

I started the year with being sick in some kind of cold. After staying inside recovering for a few days it was nice to get outside for a walk. We went to the cemetery where it was rainy and sombre and spooky. Just the way I like it.

See you soon again!

Tjingeling!
/Lotta