Inspirational!!!

I woke at 9 this morning- a record for me, but I feel the stress of the holidays and I've been like a dead man walking lately....so tired!!!! When I woke Stig had a roaring fire going and coffee water made (we are powder coffee drinkers unless it's a special occasion then we pull out the "real" coffee...hahaha) and I sat down to check my emails and have a little coffee and of course I wandered over to some of the blogs I follow and then ended up following links from those blogs to other blogs and before I knew it I had spent several hours reading blogs from all over the world! I felt myself becoming energized by all the inspirational people out there. So many creative and fascinating people. I think it's the greatest thing with blogs is being able to "peek" into someone else's world for a short bit and sometimes learning things and sometimes just admiring. I look at various types of blogs, food blogs, travel blogs, photography blogs, and expat blogs and of course interior blogs. The last type of blogs there I must admit I have absolutely NO idea about. I would never consider myself an interior expert by any stretch of the imagination. But I wish I was!!!! So I go to these blogs and try to pick up a little inspiration. Only problem is I love so many different things that I end up looking like a mix and match used store in my home, because I love a little modern, a little old, a little country and a little new. I guess there is an interior style for someone like me I just don't really know how to pull it all together....maybe I'm slowly learning without realizing it yet!!! When my kids move out in ten-fifteen years, I might have a house totally stylish and not even know how it got that way!!! That would be typical me to just fall into something without realizing what I'm doing!!!!

Right now I'm fascinated by all the snow we have. It's just so beautiful outside and the camera goes warm with all the snow photos I'm taking these days. Still haven't gotten pictures taken for Christmas cards but man do I have a lot of snow photos I could use!!!! Hahaha! Well, I think it's looking more and more like photos will not be accompanying our Christmas cards this year, but I wrote a Christmas letter and will try and squeeze that in with the nice cards I bought yesterday. Ce' la vie....will try again next year!!!

We picked the kids up from school yesterday and went to Hamar to finish our Christmas shopping. I can proudly say we are done with buying gifts, the only thing remaining as far as gifts go is the baking I'm planning on doing for some of the people around here. I'm still considering if I will try sending some baked goods to Stig's family but I will for sure bake for my friends around here. So this is what I will work on the rest of the day. I am also planning a trip to the Skafferiet where I bake, to look around and see if I can't find something to exchange my work favours on. She has tons of shabby chic interior stuff, so we will see what I find. A big thing I've noticed is lanterns, they are all around now and I would love some for my front porch, but I don't want what everyone else has. I found one on a blog that was like a basket, and round with a candle in it, LOVED that but couldn't tell where she found it, I think the blog was in Swedish and unfortunately I'm not THAT good in reading Swedish, I can understand SOME of it but not all....like I think I read somewhere someone wrote something about a dog "kissing" and I thought oh, how cute it's kissing but later figured out that it was something about the dog peeing inside...hmmm.....it's so easy to make mistakes with language!!!!

Will also run to the store today as tomorrow everything is closed. I'm not sure if this is a phenomen in Sweden and Denmark, perhaps some of you living in these countries who are reading this can let me know, but the stores close here on Sunday...everything....so we have to shop on Saturday if we will have food on Sunday. I really hated this in the beginning of living here and if they ever installed Sunday open shops I'd be a very happy lady but I've learned to live with it. I just have to make sure whatever baking or food preparing I'm planning on doing on Sunday I have everything I need by Saturday or I have to wait until Monday....nice huh? I think we will do fried rice and chicken for dinner...have a recipie for that which looks so good and simple.

Well, enjoy my snow photos I leave you with. I'll add a couple of the Skafferiet which I took on my way home last time I baked there....it's such a quaint and sweet little shop/cafe and I highly recommend anyone coming to our area to check it out!!! Be well folks and we'll talk again soon....