Life Lately: December 2015.

Watching | Swedish Christmas film En underbar jävla jul at the cinema and Phoenix during the holidays.

Listening to | Christmas music, above all.

Consuming | Lots of Christmas food + sweets.

Reading | I started reading 28 Tage lang by David Safier (a Swedish translation though, my German is not what it once was) but didn't finish it yet, mostly because I had already completed my book goal for 2015 and wanted the book to count towards my 2016 goal.

Visiting | The parents + relatives around the holidays.

Enjoying | Everything about the holidays :) Christmas shopping, the decorations, the food and so on.

Making | More pages for my 2015 PL album.

Looking forward to | Being on the PL Creative Team in 2016 and our trip to Prague in late January.

Around here: Goodbye 2015, hello 2016.

2015 was quite a year... I know that the scars I carry from this year will shape the rest of my life. And yet, I've felt reluctant to let 2015 go because paradoxically it has also been one of the best years of my life so far. 2016 will bring with it lots of uncertainty. Big decisions will need to be made, the life-changing kind. But during the past thirty years I've learned that the light inside me might flicker sometimes, but it has never gone out yet. I have faith that it won't in 2016 either, come what may. I have never chosen a word for the upcoming year before, but this time it came to me rather effortlessly. Stronger. A reminder that I am stronger than I give myself credit for and that life's difficulties will only continue to make me stronger.

Happy New Year everyone and welcome to any new readers who might find themselves here thanks to yesterday's big announcement.

Bring on 2016 :)

Around here: Christmas 2015.

December 24th.

Today is the big day around here so it's time to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas :)

Around here: Glimpses from December so far.

2015 Top 5.

TV shows


Tusen år till julafton | 1864 | The Affair | Mad Men | Det är inte så dumt att bli gammal
This feels like the most random mix - one Swedish Advent calendar mini series, two American TV shows, one Danish mini series and a Swedish (mini) documentary series. But, as I looked through my life lately entries from 2015 these are the shows that stood out. Mad Men (which I will miss dearly) and The Affair were entertaining and Tusen år till julafton super cute while 1864 and Det är inte så dumt att bli gammal had the most lasting impact on me, on a deeper level.

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Films


Far from the Madding Crowd | Little Boy | Still Alice | Testament of Youth | The Theory of Everything
I feel like 2015 had more good quality films than previous years so it was quite difficult to pick a top 5 (I know some of these came out in 2014 but I didn't watch them until 2015 so I'm including them here). Honorable mentions would be Everest and The Imitation Game.

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Books


Little Bee | The Opposite of Loneliness | Sarah's Key | Shifting Colours | We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Out of the 12 books I read this year these were the ones I enjoyed the most. I don't necessarily think any of these would make it to my all-time favourites, but they were definitely worth reading and opened my eyes to certain issues I didn't know much about before. I wasn't very intentional about picking these books but realize now that it's easy to detect a common theme of injustice and prejudice in them, with the exception of The Opposite of Loneliness. Quite fitting for a year like 2015, as it turned out.

Project Life: September.

I finished my September spreads not that long ago so I thought I'd share them, a bit late. There are only three spreads from the whole month, but that will change dramatically once I document our trip to Croatia.

Project Life: November.

Here are my PL spreads from November. Apparently I liked BW and stripes this month :) I still have quite a few spreads to complete from earlier this year, but despite that I've never been this caught up with my yearly scrapbooking before. I hope I will be able to have my photo book printed early in the new year.

Around here: The first Sunday of Advent.

Life lately: November 2015.

Watching | Spectre at the cinema, Inside Out and the Shaun the Sheep Movie at home. I am not a huge Bond fan, but I can't deny that the films are entertaining in many ways. Inside Out and Shaun the Sheep were both super cute.

Listening to | Music from Så mycket bättre, especially by Miriam Bryant and Lisa Nilsson.

Consuming | Homemade sweets from the Christmas market we went to at the castle last weekend + saffron buns, yum.

Reading | I finished Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. Such a fascinating story about historic events I knew very little about beforehand.

Visiting | My parents as well as my youngest sister and her new baby kitty Alfons - the cutest little furball I ever did see.

Enjoying | Attending my friend's Disney-themed birthday party at the beginning of the month, trying out my new camera lens, getting the opportunity to do a short internship at the local police department and D.A.'s office, decorating and planning for Christmas and of course memory keeping.

Making | Project Life spreads.

Looking forward to | Finishing my Christmas shopping, making this year's gingerbread house and Christmas of course :)