malinmaskros

I have a job interview in two weeks, I hope I get it!

Our horse is well again, fortunately, they went back home yesterday, after having him at the horse clinic for five days or so.

It´s worse off with me - I, as well as my sister, nephew, brother-in-law, got the flu while they were here, at least I think it was the flu - like a cold, but worse. So now I´m caughing, sniffling and sneezing, and I spend all of yesterday in bed with a fever, and aching all over. The good thing about stomach flu, is that they´re gone after a day, this feels like it could last for a while.

Enough self pity - I have only been doing ATCs for a very short time, and already someone wants to do a trade! Yay!

My family has a horse, Krysset, we´ve had him for almost eleven years, and he´s the greatest horse I´ve ever met. And now he´s really ill, they had to take him 700 km, to the horse clinic, late last night. And they still don´t know what´s wrong with him, or if they can fix it. I so hope that thy can make him better, I don´t know how life would be like without him (even though I only see him once or twice every year).



If you have some thoughts, or prayers, or just a crossed finger or two, please send them his way. And while you´re at it, do send some towards my granny as well, she´s 92½, and has not been well lately. I hope they both get well soon!

I have put up a pile of my Japanese craft books on Swedish Tradera, I kept my favourites and decided to sell the rest. Why, you might ask. Well, I found some other Japanese books I´d rather have, so I feel it´s a fair trade. I hope I get them all sold, and soon, and expensive!

I´m thinking about selling my Japanese craft books, I haven´t as much as opened any of them in a very long time. On the other hand, they are hard to come by here, and I have spend quite a bit of money on them, and they are very lovely, so the question is - will I regret it if I sell them? I need to think about this, long and hard. They don´t take up that much space on the shelf, and I will probably survive financially until the next time I get money. But there are other things I want to get, that I simply can´t afford now. What will I miss the most - my Japanese craft books, or going shopping? (The question is not as easy as it sounds, I do love to shop, and as I said, there are things I need/want to get)

One of my photos got on the Explore front page on flickr, yay! It´s the most traffic I have had on any of my photos, the most comments, and all in a couple of days! If I knew what I did right on that one, I´ll do it again, that´s for sure!

I´m mostly blogging over at malinmöblerar, but this has been playing in my head for the last week or two, a brilliant version of a great song! I definitely need to hear more from them! Thanks a lot, LA Ink, for playing it! Oh, and talking about LA Ink - three episodes have been shown so far, and I love it - even better than Miami Ink!

Yesterday, when I was going home from work, I discovered that someone had been in my bag, stealing all of the money out of my purse. Another co-worker had lost her cigarettes, and another one her keys (which were later found). Someone (probably one of the kids´ parents) had been in our changing room, and had gone through our stuff. Can you believe that someone actually would do such a thing? And then they come back the next day, pretending as it´s raining!
But there are good people too - our cook felt bad for me, and gave me the amount that had been stolen, can you believe the kindness? So I made her some chocolate cake last night, just to show my appreciation, I hope she´ll enjoy it!

But to you who stole my money - curse on you! May you never have any luck for the rest of your life!

If there is one thing I recommend all of you to do, it´s to read some of your childhood/teen favourite books. It´s amazing, you´ll feel like you are back in those days, but you only remember the good things. I have re-read several old favourites, I´m now working my way through Anne of Greengables by LM Montgomery (they are so lovely!), and will then go to the Five-books by Enid Blyton - I loved them when I was little! So - go dig up some old books!

I´m somewhat torn: I went to the dietitian yesterday (good thing: on my good eating days, I eat very well, bad thing: on my bad days, I still have binge eating symptoms), and as a last question I asked her what she thought of gastric by-pass. She thought it was a good solution for a lot of people, but not for me, as long as I eat a vegan diet - my stomach will be to small for me to get the nutrients I need from a plant-based diet. That was something I hadn´t even thought aobut - I know I have to eat more now, but I hadn´t realized that I would have to do it later also (duh!). So, the thing is - find a solution now and loose weight on my own (the dietitian seemed very good, easy to talk to, and with some therapy for the eating problems I thought I had gotten rid of, maybe I can do it), or eat a ovo-lakto diet after the surgery (which I think is as morally wrong as eating meat). I feel I´m stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I know most of you are lurkers, but can I please get an opinion? Possible staying fat for the rest of my life, but ethically feeling good, or getting slim, but feeling like crap in my soul?

For the first time, you get to see how I look like! It´s a portrait made by my friend´s 6-year-old daughter, and it does look a lot like me!

I´m really surprising myself, lately. As you know, I get very tunnel vision-ed when I´m into something, and forgets about everything else, even the things that mesmerized me a week earlier. But now - my eating well is working, I knit and crochet and embroider, I sew and paint at my flat, I swap, I do a little bit of everything. And It´s working rather well, and I´m enjoy doing it all at once.

I went to Farsta (a suburb to Stockholm with a big shopping mall) last Saturday with my friend, Malin, and I did some serious bargain shopping (since a very serious lack of money). I got two pairs of shoes (about $12), three metres of lovely fabric (about $15) and a watch (for free - it was on sale, and I had previously bought a mobile charm in that store, and it broke, so I exchanged it for the watch). And I was treated to lunch. Cheap day, indeed!

Then, in the evening, I was invited to my sister for dinner, and we had Indian food (yummy!), and my sister (who´s a hairdresser) dyed my hair, so now it´s dark brawn, on the verge of black (the cowards version of black...).

I´ve bought some lovely prints at Etsy, and today I got the first one - I love it, and can´t wait to get the other three - I do need some nice pictures on my walls, now it´s mostly Ikea postcards, not that original. Buying prints from Etsy mean that I´m pretty much the only one in Sweden with that exact art - that is not to be said about "art" from Ikea...

With a visit to the vet... My cat has been drinking and peeing obsessivly for the last months, and I´ve been thinking diabetes. Now I went to the vet to get him examinated, and it sure was diabetes. And then they charged me about $420 for telling me something I already knew. My choices are 1) to do nothing, and he lives pretty comfortably for another 2 or 3 years or 2) to give him shots twice every day, and he lives pretty comfortably for another 2 or 3 years. My first thought was, shots, absolutely, but now, I´m thinking - it´ll be a hassle for both me and him, it´ll cost a lot of money, and it won´t change a lot. So I think I´ll just let things be, as long as he doesn´t seem to be in any pain or discomfort. I hate it when pets get sick...  

Tomorrow is my last day at work, and I couldn´t be happier! One more eternally long day, filled to the brim with boredom, and me being irritated on my boss (I threw away two plates of merengues the other day - two month old merengues - and she told me it was the wrong thing to do, tell me - would you have eaten them?). I can´t wait to be able to go outside in the daylight, to have breaks during workdays, getting payed like a normal human being, having the time and energy to have a social life... One more day, and I´m free! I will definitely begin by staying in bed Friday morning!

I´ll work here one more week, and then no more! Yay! I can´t even begin to tell you how happy I am, not having to come here anymore! I´m working from 8 am to 6 pm, plus Saturdays, I have no breaks, I have no possibility to leave the house during the day, I get crappy payed... Do I have to say more? Why I took the job in th first place, you wonder? Well, it was a job, but I can´t imagine a better day than the day I quit, woohoo! 

And it´s so pretty, and though the colour on the box says "lime", it´s not, it´s more like sage, maybe. It´s a very pretty, spring-y green, that´s what it is. And it´s easy to use, the pictures are good (I snapped away last night, even though it was dark outside, and the pics are surprisingly good!), it wasn´t expensive - in short, I love it! So now I have added pictures on Ravelry, on flickr and on older posts at my blogs. Camera - yay!

I´m sorry I´m being somewhat quiet over here, but I have been bitten yarnbug again, and when I´m not over at Ravelry, I´m blogging at malinmerino. No worries, though, I will be back here, even though I may have an occassional fling, I´ll always come back to dandelion daisy!

So I might have had more money last month than in a very long time - that doesn´t by no mean that there are anything left of them now. Unfortunately. But there are money on the way, both this week and next, I thought I had ordered more stuff thatn I actually had, and will pay all of those bills. And instead of ordering some knitting books (which I was going to do), I´m spending some money on yarn - now I´m knitting scraps, and re-knittng stuff, my stash is sadly empty. And I´m trading knitting books for yarn over at Ravelry, so yay - yarn! And that means that I´m sending three book packages on Thursday. I´m also picking up a Puppini Sisters CD, which has finally arrived (very pricy, but I think it´s worth the money), paying deco tapes, finishing a swap package. And I´m finally getting my green camera!!!!! Oh, how I will take pictures! There will be no part of my life that will escape me and my camera, wohoo! On Sunday I´m going to Stockholm, I´m buying yarn for a vegan swap (I think I know what to get), and I think there´s a knit café in the shop that day, which means I´m bringing my knitting. Only, I haven´t a knitting on the needles that are chat-friendly - the Bird´s Eye shawl craves total attention or I mess up completely. I need to buy yarn, before I´m going shopping for yarn...

Could this be? Will this be the end of all of my struggles? Will I spend the rest of my adult life smooth sailing? What the heck am I talking about, you ask? Well, you know how I always try to loose weight (I have been since I was ten, so for 23 years), and in the end, I´m fatter than ever. But now, I´m going to get a gastric bypass or binding, all payed for and everything. I know, there are lots of risks with the surgery and afterwords, but I have heard of big successes as well, and I feel this can finally be the way for me to be thin (or at least thinner), and also - being my size, and with a family history of heart attacks, if I don´t loose weight, I might not see my 40th birthday. All I´m hoping for now, is that I get the operation soon - I´d love to be thin when I turn 35 in two years. Oh my, what amazing clothes I will wear!

And yesterday I did something I´ve been dreading for a while - I quit my job. I´ll work this month, and no more. I need extra money, but not that bad.

Yesterday, I got some of the swatches I ordered from Cath Kidston, and they look wonderful, the fabric is nice and thick, the swatches are rather big, BUT - across them is a big fat "SAMPLE" stamped, which I think is a bit on the cheap side. I will try to wash them and see if it comes out, otherwise I´ll just use them in tiny projects.