Hi!
I've always been a collector and I probably always will be. What I'm collecting though changes through time. If you ask me today I would say I collect old teapots, vintage clothes, hats, old postcards and photos of strangers and probably at least ten other things.
When I was a kid I collected pretty stationary, stamps, The Little Mermaid stickers and erasers.

Today when I cleaned out my desk drawers I found a cigar box and I looked at it for a while trying to remember what on earth could be in it. When I opened it I let go of a tiny laugh. One of those fond little giggles that slip out when you all of a sudden look at something from another time of your life and you get a flood of emotions that seem to have been stored in that little box since way back when.
I remember these erasers so well. I loved that little book even though it was absolutely rubbish as erasers go. That wasn't the point of it though. They were pretty and I could have them in my pen case in school and it was almost like having a little treasure with me everyday that I could fool the teachers into thinking they were just erasers, nothing more. Not pretty little tresaures to look fondly at when I was bored out of my mind in math class.

Then I found another collection but that is one that hasn't been planned. I didn't even know I had it.
Coins from around the world.
I have always liked to keep the coins left over from trips or given to me by my parents when I was a child but it was not a concious decision to start collecting coins. It just sort of happened along with life.
I used to store them in a little copper tin, that I made in school when I was 14, but the coins won't fit in it anymore and today when I looked through my drawers I found coins in every single drawer. From lots of different countries! Not worth much but still: coins!
I felt like Pippi Longstocking!

Two newfound treasures in one day.
That's a good start of the weekend, if I say so myself.

So here's a really embarrasing (but also a little bit cool) story straight out of my life.
On saturday I took out my hulahoop from it's place behind the bedroom door and decided it was time I got back too hooping every morning like I used to do a few years ago.

Back then I had started slowly, hooping maybe five minutes straight before I dropped the hulahoop. After months of doing this every morning I was up to 14 minutes without dropping the hoop and I was very proud of myself. It was good workout and I liked to see the progress every day, even though it was only a couple of seconds more each time.
For some reason I stopped doing it for a few years and every time I have tried since then I haven't been able to hoop for more than a couple of minutes and I haven't had any motivation to do it every morning so I just forgot about it, kept the hulahoop behind the bedroom door to collect dust.

Until saturday.
I started to hoop and I just couldn't stop.
I was so fascinated with how long I could keep the hoop spinning and I thought to myself "this is so cool, I'm breaking my own record here!" So I kept going until I was so tired I almost fell to the floor. I let the hoop fall instead and checked the stopwatch.

19 minutes, my friends. NINETEEN!
I was so proud of myself! And a bit amazed, because how was it even possible? Then I realised that I probably have enhanced my endurance through runnning, an activity that I didn't do back then when I was hooping regularly.

Okay, so that's the really cool part. Now comes the embarrasing side of this story.

On sunday I woke up with an extreme muscle soreness. Like never before experienced by my body. I could hardly move. It was HORRIBLE.

But yesterday was even worse.

It hurt to move. It hurt to speak. It definitely hurt to laugh.
It felt like somebody had broken me in two halves and then stuck me back together in a not so orderly fashion, leaving out at least a few of my ribs in the process.
I stayed in the sofa all day yesterday, whining to myself (and to David) about how stupid I was to break my record on the very first day hulahooping again after so many years.
Why didn't I just stop?
Why didn't I take it slow in the beginning?
Well, duh, because I was amazed by my own awesomeness, of course!

For those of you who haven't tried hulahooping you might not realise how hard workout it is for your back and stomach, so I know how ridiculous this sounds. And since I woke up today with a more regular muscle soreness I too am laughing at the silliness of it all.
But I'm also quite proud of myself.

Nineteen minutes! I mean, NINETEEN MINUTES!
Next time I'll stop after ten. I think.

Tjingeling!
/Lotta

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!

Hej!
As most of you probably know by now I'm a big fan of cemeteries. I just really like the dramatic mood and the calm combined with the pretty flowers and trees. Lately I've taken up running in the evenings. For those of you who've known me forever this might seem odd and not like me at all, and yes, I thought so too.
When I was younger I danced a lot and went to aerobic classes several times a week. I absolutely love to move to music and that's what aerobic was all about for me. I went to step aerobic classes but my knees really didn't like that and it eventually gave me some kind of sports injury that made it impossible to work out. I changed to a more low impact aerobic class and it turned out fine. But I think I got scared of hurting my knees again so since then I've stayed away from everything that's too bouncy and jumpy. I love to take really fast walks so that's sort of been my workout through the years.
But that feeling of wanting to move to music didn't get satisfied and I found myself starting to long for running. I have NEVER run before. Like never ever. It was such an alien thought that it actually took a couple of years of convincing myself before I dared to try it. My body doesn't know how to run so I started out extremely slow because I did NOT want to hurt my knees again.
As well as being a bit terrified of hurting myself I was also very self conscious about how I looked when I was running. I couldn't let go of the feeling that everybody looked at me and judged my technique, my loud breathing or my pace. I chose the cemetery both because I love the surroundings and also because I knew I could be sort of hidden from weird looks. Yes, there is other people there but not as many and not as evil looking, haha.
I still walk more than I run but I'm definitely getting there. And I'm not as scared anymore. The most amazing thing to me is that I still, after almost two months, think it's wonderful. I've made a playlist on spotify called Jag springer, jag springer (I'm running, I'm running) with music perfect for either walking super fast or running and some of the songs fit my pace so perfectly I sometimes smile widely and mime along to the lyrics. I also really love to see how the cemetery changes from spring to summer. Every time I'm there I stop to snap a photo or two and here is the result. All of them taken with a sweaty iPhone and a somewhat shaky hand.

Right outside my house the sun is setting below my neighbourhood beech tree.

The grave chamber of the Keiller family hiding in dusk one spring evening.

Ah, Magnolia you pretty flower!

Popping out.

Everywhere there's hidden stairs and pathways.

I have started to love rhododendron this spring. Has it been an especially rhododendron friendly season this year or why do they seem to pop up everywhere lately when I haven't really noticed them before?

Sun through tree branches will always make me stop and sigh.
And snap a photo.

The city on the other side.

When the sun sets it paints the graves in the most amazing light and makes this cross look like it's on fire.

Perfectly situated house.

Rainy and grey is pretty too.

The Keiller family sure thought they were important people...

On my way home I pass these fighting dudes. I think it's such an hilarious statue and for some reason I think the weather and the light makes it look different every day.

And I'll end this post with a picture of me coming home from the worst rainfall ever. I had just passed through the gates to the cemetery when it started to rain but I said to myself it probably wouldn't be so bad. Well, yeah. It poured down the entire time and after ten minutes I was completely soaked and decided I couldn't get any wetter. I turned my face up and smiled to the rain and the music in my ears took off at the same time as the rain. It was actually lovely.