December!

Out for a morning run with Dean and Frank singing christmas tunes. It's cold, dark and early, who wants to go running? But you never regret it.

How I'm feeling now, after running. It just works.

Parenting is a verb

When I'm at work, this sense of belonging, of being a port of security, is what I look forward to when returning home. There are little tigers on Niki's dress, matching the tiger print on my jumpsuit. Below, more animal related media, an old video of same child but at the age of 14 months, when she was already down with the language of beasts.

Family is when you offer each other unconditional love and a safe haven. Like Zach's family.

ps. FILM YOUR KIDS/LOVED ONES! I regret every instant I haven't filmed. That's a whole lot of time!

Birth through sea section

If you have kids in Stockholm

Try losing your head at Grand Hotel.

Cape

This garment called cape. Can anyone see such an item of clothing without adding the words "covers a multitude of sins" in their heads?

Jul på Drottningholm

Vanja 10

Make a wish!

Confession

Whenever I hear the expression "grow a pair" I always think about boobs, not balls.

Blog use

I'm posting this here for easy reference since I hate trying on clothes and the blog is somehow always there - in the phone.

Also, next time you want to send me a dress or a coat, these are my measurements. And yes, my ass is at least one size larger than the rest of me. That's OK, meaning Original Kardashian.

Things I thought I wanted to do in Paris

I really thought I wanted to go to the Merci store, perhaps to Paul & Joe, to any old clothes store but really, back in Sweden it didn't bother me that I missed out on those things. The only thing I regret is not going to this.

Quote of the day from Joel

Mom, you know everything would be a little better if we were...Gods!

Obs länkade fel förut

Missa inte Helena Viales genialiska hårberättelse.

So freaking proud of this person

Vanja took bronze in her group!

Love this

Tack Petra!

Scary

This Emily Bronte quote scares me. That is so far from my ideal romance.

Print is pretty though and you might be attracted to the very thing that terrifies me. Because our sould are not the same. Thank God.

Veckans läsning/jobbskolk

Läs först! Bland det bästa jag läst Om hår

och en rolig text om rumpor/mäns rätt att tycka om kvinnors utseenden

change!

I've been lazy. from now on, until I get lazy again, every comment will be commented. Hit me!

Dear Harry Schein

Didn't know you were a brother of another mother. Lord of the rings is one of the most boring movies I've ever seen.

Brev från Citizen Schein.

Inspirational person of the day

Kids

I don't know about you, but to me, parenting is 50% crazy love like you've never experienced it before and 50% craziness like playing the most stressful computer game ever invented. As soon as you think you've got everything under control, new objects appear on the scene, new problems/challenges emerge that must be solved by you INSTANTLY.

I was thinking about this yesterday when I woke up to chaos, solved chaos, calmed hysterics, helped my son out of the summer clothes he'd picked for the drizzly november rain, changed clothes on my youngest daughter again so that she would only be wearing items marked with a disgusting, bodyless, mouthless cat face branded HELLO KITTY. Then tried to remember I must buy Vanja tooth protection for her upcoming Karate fight, new shoes for Joel, serving breakfast while almost burning down the house (don't leave your French Toast on the stove while running up to a different floor to get yet another set of HELLO KITTY clothes), realizing all gloves were mysteriously gone, the pram suddenly broken, so had to carry small but impressively heavy and muddy gloveless girl all the way to daycare before dropping the older kids off at school but first I had to console oldest daughter because I'd forgotten ("how could you forget, mom?!!!?") the gift containing 12 different items we should all have prepared for less fortunate young individuals in faraway countries.

Working up to level 4, pick kids up from daycare, clean the house, cook dinner, do laundry, see to it that everyone's happy, see a 6-year old carrying a plate of pasta with one hand, see same person drop it on the floor, see younger kid instantly grab the wonderful opportunity to dance around in ketchup and spaghetti. Start cleaning the house all over again. Your 4-year old wants to tell you something important, but she also believes she's a cat, so all that comes out of her mouth is meow, meow, meow-meow. MEOW MEOW MEOW!!!! You ask her to please tell whatever it is she wants to say in a human tongue, she replies MEOW???? She looks really upset.

Try to stay sane and don't yell at anyone, cause it will only backfire, taking you up to level 5, messy fights before you've had a decent chance to have dinner yourself.

Next day! Ooops! Mail from daycare! Pinworms in the building. In same mail, they welcome you to come have coffee and treats made by pinworm carrying suspects. No joke! Move up to level 6.

You'd forgotten about coffee and treats and have a deadline for tomorrow but would you really want your kid to be the only one there without a parent present? Your spouse is in Beirut. You'll have to work tonight, sleep is overrated, you're used to not sleeping anyways as you haven't slept a whole night for 10 years. Move up to level 7.

There's an itch in your scalp and yes, there have been reports about lice at school. That means you'll have to wash all the bed linen tonight! All five beds. Just do it. You have a washing machine, think about all the people who still do their laundry by hand. Also, you can afford lice treatment. You lucky devil.

Scratching your head in what you hope to be a discreet way, you're told one of your kids has been totally out of line at school. What will you do about it? On the bus, complete strangers offer "helpful advice" on how to dress your children. You refrain from violence cause it's just not your style. Not yet. Move up to level 8.

You master level 8 (including all the above + putting people to sleep + further laundry - all the covers of your white couches). Now the kids are all sleeping and you're planning a dinner party for tomorrow, cause while you might have to stay home with kids you refuse the notion that that would mean you can't see your friends. Your friends are the mountain that you insist will have to come to your Muhammad (adding a dinner for friends while taking care of your kids brings you up to to level 9 but you think you'll manage). But before you start cooking for tomorrow, you just have to sneak in and look at the kids while they're sleeping. One of them made an "I love you mummy" drawing today and another one retold a really long story about Thor and he told it so well you couldn't believe this is the same kid you've been told wasn't listening in class. And the third one told you about how FUN the music class was, how they were all singing and then she belts out a tune and your heart MELTS.

They're so tall in their sleep, how could they have grown so? Where are all the rounded tummies you knew so well, the almost bald baby heads? How can your youngest be almost 4? How is it that they now want to hear Harry Potter instead of Little Bear? Where did all those days, weeks, years go? What were you so busy doing? Now that they're sleeping, you think parenting might actually be 85% crazy love and just 15 % crazy computer game.

At 7:32 AM however, those figures will be reversed. Round noon back to 50/50.

Have fun!

This day

Anders left for Lebanon early this morning, he's running Beirut marathon at the end of the week. If any of you think this sounds like a great idea, you could do it too, the marathon is on Sunday.

Above you see Anders with the bag holding everything he'll need (or 6 days). He's adding an essential item here, his snus.

I usually do fine on my own with the kids when he's away but this morning was out of control stressful, leaving me feeling like this .

But then met up with Brita and Petra. So doing fine again.

This Monday

This morning, met up with the two individuals who've done most for my career. Two smart, wonderful people, Lotta and Jenny.

This is the feeling meeting them left me with.

Running out into the sunset, together.

Now is when you decide

If you're going to keep up working out even in cold weather.

I went for a run this morning. Did not regret it.

This is my only working advice for making it when it comes to winter workouts: Give yourself the liberty/permission to complain, sulk, bitch, moan, curse or even switch to walking once you've run a kilometer. Miraculously, I've never had to. Once the gear is on and that first kilometer is completed, you just keep going. You never regret a completed workout. Feel free to slap me for being this...way.

Below - a regular morning post the first km, once I've seen the light.

ps. why do cardio at all? Because it works.

The words of Agatha Christie, the image of a beast

“It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them. ”

St Margaret and a lovable dragon at the Musée National du Moyen Âge.

Have posted this before, but must share it again.

I do this too, EVERY MORNING.

The one reason I might get a dog

Let them eat cake!

Vanja making a tough decision in the Parisian home of Tove, Moa, Lovisa and Gaël.

More later.

At the Louvre-weird.

So at the Louvre, there was a huge crowd taking pictures. I thought perhaps Johnny Depp was in the building. But no. They were taking pictures like crazy. Of....

Yes. Such a strange phenomenon. Do they not know what she looks like? Can't they afford the much better pics available as postcards?

So many other magnificent paintings. I don't know, Mona-Lisa, you're nice, but I've never found you to be that outstanding.

This guy, for example, is more interesting to me. A man who likes to read and work out but is still highly original. A bit troubling that he also seems to be into muscular male children. I was the only one interested in this picture. Why are the rest so into Mona Lisa?

At the Louvre

Saw men whose style has since been ripped off by/heavily influenced Sonia Rykiel.

This was yesterday

Oh Paris. We didn't want to go back home.

Paris!

On the plane, pretending my plastic surgery had gone terribly wrong.

Then practicing French facial expressions. This one means "This fromage is unbelievably fantastique, don't you agree?"

Our room is on the 6th floor, no elevator. Both Vanja and I are absent minded, always forgetting stuff. You know what this will mean? GREAT LEGS!

Love the hotel room despite all those stairs. LOVE IT.

Steak with eggs and fries! So far from the spinach and lentils fare at home.

Also met up with Natasha! So great. Decided to met up with her in London to see this:

Most comforting diary entry ever

I highly recommend this book and Kafkas entry for June 1, 1912.

Like Sand's entry too.

By far the most interesting blog I've visited in a while

I don't understand a word on this blog, but LOVE the images.

Yes please

Art that doesn't make me angry. Artek poster.

The difference between men and women

Imagine this movie, with say, Robert Pattinson in the middle and Faye Dunaway and Lily Tomlin on his sides and the same title: Passion Play, love is stronger than death.

I'd instantly think it would be a comedy.

Biggest difference though: I would actually want to see it.

My life right now

Because one person asked me to update my blog, I will! I got so happy and excited that I could feel small showers of ecstatic sweat shoot from my armpits through the air to finally land on the inside of my expensive and exquisite Burgundy colored cashmere sweater (Excited, ecstatic, expensive and exquisite. This sentence reads like an e-themed spelling bee contest.)

So here is the update: This year continues to be one of the worst I've ever heard of. I'm not writing why here, too personal, and grief is something I take outside of blogging. You don't need to pity me or worry, let us just conclude one more time: life is largely unfair and horrible but luckily also amazing and wonderful. Hang on to the love. love love love. it's the only thing!

Am starting to suspect the stars and planets are in disorder, too much bad stuff happening at the same time. Went to a psychic last year who predicted lots of bad stuff would happen this year. To make it worse, the psychic looked like I WILL IN THE FUTURE. How am I supposed to interpret THAT?

Tomorrow, good things: Will travel to Paris to CELEBRATE (always want to follow up "celebrate" with "my sexuality" do you too? but as you will read on you will discover that nothing could be less sex-focused than this trip) my daughter turning 10 and me coincidentally completing my first decade as a mom. Best ten years of my life because of her and the two others. And Anders yes and family and friends but the love for the kids - it is different! can't explain it.

Then Anders is off to Lebanon to run the Beirut Marathon.

What else? Yesterday a man I'd never met yelled at me, furiously, because I had PRESSED THE BUTTON TO CROSS THE HIGHWAY!!! How could I? He gave me a piece of his mind: "To do what you just did is a FUCKING NUISANCE." I was dumbstruck. Thinking a life filled with anger was an even worse fate than receiving whatever fitting retort I would come up with.

Personally, I was also upset yesterday. Upset by ART! And by Architecture! My sensitive artistic soul was hurt by the UGLINESS of Bofills Båge. And the art my taxes have paid to decorate the place.

There are two enormous plates. One of them holds humongous grapes. The other plate is broken, and in two places, there are heaps of what at first appears to be chicken legs. But then, the thought dawns on you that the grapes from the other sculpture are now gone, the plate is broken and this might be grape seeds! How much did this "art" cost us? It does absolutely nothing but infuriate me. It is ugly and the concept is banal.

Have now read up. Not grape seeds at all. What looks like grape seeds are little flasks supposed to collect "The tears of Aphrodite". I was wrong as I so often am. But I'm still angry! Still think Bofill's Båge is the ugliest, most unfriendly place I've ever visited, with Brussels after midnight a close second.

Had to go home and watch Glee with my children to get back to normal.

Start the day off with love and joy

Don't you love how his face is frozen in that undignified happy singing state?

TACK MALIN ELMLID!!!!

Lotta and I received a package today!

So happy and grateful!

THANK YOU MALIN ELMLID!!!!

If I was in New York today

I'd go to the Jewish Museum to see this.

Next month, I'd go there too, to see Maurice Sendaks selection of Hanukkah lamps.

Att skämmas för sitt kön.

Menar då inte genitalierna utan min plats som kvinna bland andra kvinnor. Människor som hittar på produktnamn som NAGELGODIS. Varje dag blir jag lite arg på den här flaskan. I bakgrunden - piller som ska ge mig tjockare, glansigare hår eftersom mina gener misslyckats med att ge mig just detta.

Att vara kvinna.

Erkänner att jag även har problem med själva ordet "kvinna". Har aldrig gillat det. För likt kviga. Det hårda k:et. Men vad gör man? Tjej känns för ungt. Fruntimmer för gammaldags. Brud för slangigt och associerat med giftermål. Vill gärna ha ett nytt ord.

This weekend

Ran my 2000:th km with Nike+. As you can see, I don't run very fast. But I keep running. It's not about pain or misery like I first thought.

It's about getting stronger, just being here, on this earth, right now.

A word from your leader: You could run too. If you want to.

Lårparti.

Maja i helgen. Notera den underbara touchen med små små Acne-stövletter till denna sumo-outfit med INBYGGD FLÄKT-

cant wait for this.

YES!!!!

Women and lace

From A tree grows in Brooklyn.

Läser på om fotknölar.

Tänker att jag vill bli av med dem på ett ställe som heter Elisabetkliniken i Uppsala, men som en gång i tiden hette Upsala Myror, en samlingsplats för "mindre bemedlade fruntimmer som sett bättre dagar."

What I always thought sisterhood would be like

I've never had a sister by birth like my children do. Because of that, I've chosen so many sisters throughout life. LOVE YOU.

Met up with some of them for breakfast this morning.