Monday. Sigh.

Sigh sigh. I have to write a paper. Like, right now. It's due tomorrow at midnight, you see.

But all I want to do is draw! And maybe embroider and look at pinterest a little. We spent three or four hours yesterday evening madly cleaning out the kitchen cupboards after seeing a moth so it definitely feels like I deserve some drawing and relaxation time in exchange for my sunday evening!

It's a pretty interesting paper though, at least I hope it will be, about diversity in children's television. I'm using the swedish childrens channel as a positive example. Swedish speakers, watch Min familj on svt play! It's a children's show, of course, but I get really excited about it, it makes me feel hopeful for the future. Really smart, articulate, happy kids showing off their families. Your heart will get all warm and fuzzy!

Okay back to writing. I have to get this done so I can do all the other things I have to do... and maybe eventually somehow scrape aside a little drawing and crafting time!

polish trick

My grandmother used to tell me that when she was a girl, in the 1940s, it was the style to leave your "half-moons", or the area by the cuticle, unpolished when doing your nails. I always thought that sounded very difficult, verging on impossible, so I didn't try it. But a few days ago I read that it was also the style in those days to remove a tiny hairsbreadth of polish from the ends of your nails by running the edge of your thumb along it. Taken together these two tricks were supposed to make your manicure last longer since the polish is prevented from peeling at the cuticle and chipping when you touch things with your nails.  I never bother painting my nails lately since I hate how quickly it looks chipped, so I had to try it. And it totally works!

This picture was taken days after I painted my nails, the manicure lasted through daily showers (always a culprit in my nail chipping), dish doing, tub scrubbing, lots and lots of typing and who knows what else, with only one touch up. After a week I took it off for another colour. I'm so impressed how this works! The chips are barely existent and way less noticeable and I think my nails look longer too.

It's not at all hard to leave the half-moon unpainted, just paint three strokes, one in the middle, then one on each side that starts a little further down. It's easier to get the shape smooth on
the second coat, and it takes a little practise to get them all even.

Allotment in Autumn

I spent the afternoon in my allotment. I'm trying winter sowing this year - the idea is that you sow seeds of certain plants before winter comes. They overwinter in the soil and come up just as soon as they can in spring. It certainly works with weeds! Hopefully I'll get a good result and an early harvest. I'm trying carrots, spinach and onions.

There was still a little bit waiting to be picked, too. Lots of calendula that could care less about the frosts we've had, some mint and borage flowers for Hoppy, and a good bunch of swiss chard. I almost didn't plant chard this year, but I really wanted to try the variety 'Bright Lights' - it looks so pretty in photographs! - so I made room. What a good decision that was! I've been picking it all summer, it keeps growing back, and it takes more than a couple of frosts to kill it. I think it can even stay in good shape all winter under insulating snow.

Hoppy loves to run off with a leaf of chard and snack on it in a corner. We like it steamed, sauteed with garlic and especially creamed.

Creamed swiss chard with mashed potatoes

Ingredients
1 bunch swiss chard
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
up to 1 cup milk (optional)
salt + pepper

Wash the chard thoroughly, steam it in the water that clings to the leaves plus about 1/2 cup. Drain and save the cooking liquid. Let chard cool.

Meanwhile, make a white sauce: melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir the flour into the butter with a whisk so that it gets the texture of wet sand. Keep whisking and let the butter and flour cook for couple of minutes - this gets the floury taste out. Whisk in the cooking liquid from the chard gradually to make a smooth sauce. If sauce is too thick, add milk until desired consistency is reached


. It will continue to thicken somewhat as it cooks. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

By now the chard should be cool enough to handle. If not, rinse with cold water. Squeeze firmly to remove residual cooking moisture and rinse water. Squeeze it down into a little bundle. Chop. Add to white sauce and heat through.

Serve with mashed potatoes. I like to make a 'nest' of mashed potatoes on the plate with creamed chard in the middle. Serve with flaked salt.

keeping clean

I'm studying a one-year journalist master, so by June I will theoretically be employable. The last two weeks we've had a radio sub-course and it's been fun, but exhausting. I spend a lot of time at our college radio station anyway, but these last two weeks have all had nine or ten hour days - or longer. Lots of fun and I'm really happy with my assignments but I've barely been home. I get so sad when I'm away from home, and don't have enough time to play with Hoppy, my rabbit, or sew, or keep the apartment tidy.

I finished the last assignment quite early today, went to trumpet practice and was home by 6:30 but I haven't managed to convince myself to do anything. The kitchen's a mess. There are dishes in the living room and a half-finished dress all over the dining room table. But I can't be bothered tonight, I'm simply too exhausted! Tonight is a night for watching the Simpsons, taking a bath and putting all that boring stuff off for one more day.

Christmas is coming! ... really!

The grocery store is already filling up with Christmas things: chocolate boxes, gingerbread in a million forms, julmust (spicy Christmas soda pop), but I'm makng myself wait until November before I can start even thinking about such things. It's hard to wait! Especially for all the Christmas magazines, those are my favourite.

Strange hobbies

I tend to go through phases - sometimes really long ones - where I just can't bring myself to buy clothes. I love clothes, I love looking at magazines and online and in catalogues and in second hand stores and on etsy and pinterest and - well you get the picture! I like looking in stores too, but even if I find something I like I usually end up thinking "meh, I'd rather sew a dress myself", at least right now.

It's not always less expensive to sew my own, but on the other hand I can be choosier about fabric. And I really do enjoy the process of sewing, choosing a pattern and fabric, cutting it out, fixing all the little details. I suppose I just like spending the time sewing, and have a few things slowly, rather than have lots of clothes quickly.

But time! Boy does it take time. Especially the last few weeks, my school schedule has been really demanding. I started a dress, the perfect fall dress, ages ago, by the time I finish it'll be winter! Today, for example, I sewed and hemmed the sleeves but now I think I have to cut out new ones and start over because I don't like how the plaid matches, or rather doesn't match.

Oh well, it'll be great when I finally finish!

Building a wardrobe

On Thursday I saw Julia Biel at the Stockholm Jazz Festival. It was an amazing concert and extra fun because I had a press ticket - I'll be talking about it in my radio show on wednesday so more on that later.

Getting ready to go though, I discovered an big hole in my wardrobe: I have nothing to wear for an evening out that's not either very casual or quite dressed up. What does one wear to a jazz club, or any concert for that matter where adult people are? My wardrobe right now is very collegiate (hey, if you're going to be a student, milk it I say!), with lots of nice-casual things for day and dresses for dinners and balls. I should edit that to say very Uppsala-collegiate, I think there's more dressing up here than a lot of other schools.

I really like the idea of having a 'complete' wardrobe - of course it would never be completely complete but I like working towards having something for every occassion (the same something works multiple times of course) rather than having tons of clothes and nothing to wear. One of my hobbies is really thinking about clothes, thinking about wardrobe staples and building up "the compleat wardrobe".

So not only did I see a great concert, and go to Stockholm, but I also get to start thinking about the next addition to my wardrobe: What does one wear for a weeknight concert (or theatre visit) in the city? 

Summer Reading List (Part One)

Every summer I make a reading list of 10 books. This summer I'm hoping to get through two such lists, I have a shelf full of unread books I bought during the year and haven't had time for yet. Here's the first list:

OBS! Spoilers ahead!

1. Bättre tillsammans/Better Together - Sheila O'Flanagan
What better way to start the summer than with "chick lit" (a demeaning term I don't really love but hey, maybe it's time to reclaim it). This book and the next I've been looking at in the shop for ages. I really liked Better Together, it was everything you could ask from the genre, well-written, likeable characters, the perfect amount of drama. 

2. Livet efter dig/Me before you - Jojo Moyes
This one, though ... I was not impressed. I really didn't think it was going to turn out to be yet another one of those "the quadriplegic has to die" stories so I was genuinely surprised and very disappointed with the ending, especially because I'd enjoyed it so much up till then. The characters are well developed and you genuinely enjoy "being with them" - right up until the end. It really felt as though the author just wanted to make a point about assisted suicide and invented the characters to suit a message that would perhaps be better suited for a newspaper opinion page, rather than the other way around. And it's not that I'm opposed to assisted suicide - I basically agree with Moyes' argument that it's each person's choice. But the book's insistent liberal individualism, its faith in a world where worth ultimately comes down to money and travel and making business deals - despite claims otherwise - made the book feel somehow American despite the endless references to cups of tea and English holiday towns. The basic argument was that the Good Life can be measured by how many extreme sports and trips to Bali it involves and despite the author's efforts to portray the working class compassionately it seems quite clear which side of the class divide one should prefer to be on. And this is all besides a dismal portrayal of life with a disability. As I read in another review, it doesn't seem like the author has real-life experience there, but just decided "now I'll write a story about what it must be like to become paralyzed"; considering that a lot of people who read this book probably don't have any first hand experience either, that's a problem. I don't know. It was an upsetting read on a lot of levels; of course I wouldn't care this much if it hadn't been well-written to begin with. 
One last thing - the character commits suicide just over two years after his injury. Now, my understanding of assisted suicide clinics is that they go to great lengths to make sure you really want to make that decision and it seemed a little unrealistic to me that they would go through with it then, since it is also my understanding that a depression lasting 2-3 years after a spinal cord injury isn't completely uncommon. Again, just another thing that felt "off" with the story line, as if her plot and characters didn't quite fit together with the soap box she shoved in to the novel. I think some people feel that they need to make their chick lit "go beyond" what we expect of the genre - that it has to have some "serious" aspect that's presumed missing from these "petty things women care about". A story where he embraces life, where a life of the mind can - at least somewhat - live up to his previous life of adventure, and where the love of a woman is enough to make someone want to stay alive - nevermind a novel in which the other characters learn to let the disabled character make decisions and reign over his own life as much as possible would have been great.

3. Jane Austen's Sewing Box - Jennifer Forest
My dad bought this for me while he was visiting a couple of weeks ago. I wouldn't have bought it myself (a bit expensive) and it's great! It's full of regency-era craft projects. The photographs are great and the instructions very clear.

4. The Tailor of Panama - John LeCarré
 My dad had this with him on the plane and left it here when he went back. I like John Le Carré and a spy drama is perfect summer reading. 

5. S. - J.J. Abrams
I have no idea what this is, but it looks very interesting. A friend posted it to me quite a few months ago so I've really got to hurry up and read it. 

6. Himmel över London - Håkan Nesser
I bought this at least a year ago after eyeing it for a while. It's about the 60s and I think it's a mystery. During the year I read so much non-fiction so it's fun gulping down novels! 

7. The Hare with Amber Eyes - Edmund de Waal
A biography I've been longing to read. I bought it way back in february at the annual book sale, where all the shops in town have a huge sale. 

8. How to Eat Out - Giles Coren
Rather cheeky title. It's about Coren's life as a restaurant critic. I think he's very funny so I'm looking forward to it - and have been since I got it for Valentine's day in february. Sigh. I'm terrible!

9. Matens pris - Malin Olofsson
I don't really want to read this anymore, to be honest. I bought it about a year and a half ago when I was really into food issues (still am, but less intensely), but I have no other non-fiction (besides biography) on this list and I do own the book, after all.

10. Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom sverige - Selma Lagerlöf
A classic. And yet another book I got as a gift and haven't read yet.