Welcome to Chaos !!

Here I am.....it's dark outside and inside. I am sitting in front of my lit up laptop screen and a candle on the table next to me. Just me and Chhaya this quiet Christmas Eve, or Julafton as we say in Sweden - we are alone me and Chhaya but I don't feel lonely today.
My alarm rang at 7 AM this morning, I reluctantly got up and wished I could have just kept on sleeping. I drove to work in a bad mood.....everything felt difficult and shitty. But then my day changed and it became probably one of the best days I've had at the cafe. We were slow, not many people came in because of Christmas Eve but the ones that did were super nice and I think they will be back. I work with the greatest staff, we all get along so well and we have FUN. I also found out some surprising information from somebody I work with today, surprising in a good way. It's a small world in a weird way sometimes. AND I got a gift, a tin of the Harney and Sons Holiday Tea that I like so much! How nice!
The other night we had a Christmas party at work and I got to bring Chhaya inside, so she met everybody. We exchanged gifts, it was very nice. I was sad that whole day and evening and it was comforting to be around nice people.



After work today I visited the Fashion Show Mall and then me and Chhaya went for a walk at Sunset Park so she could watch her duckie friends (the ducks). She wishes she could catch one but she won't.....she gets to run after them all puffed up and tough looking while they waddle away from her quacking loudly.



When we got home we had dinner. I had a super yummy large veggie mix from Whole Foods and a chocolate croissant from work and Chhaya got meat and carrots. I boil the carrots until soft and I put the meat on the frying pan for just a little while. Then I cut up the meat and the carrots and mix them together.



I think I might watch Karl-Bertil Jonssons Julafton now.....THAT might make me a bit sad because I grew up watching that in Sweden. But it will be a good kind of sad.



I hope YOU are warm, cozy and safe this Christmas Eve. And if you feel sad and/or lonely, remember I care - even if I might not know you in person. I still care. Many hugs from me to you. ❤

After seeing a lot of writing about a Norwegian series called SKAM, about the intriguing lives of high school teens, being mentioned on several Swedish blogs I decided to see for myself what the craze is all about. I watched the whole first season last night and this morning, two more seasons to go. I love it! Plus the music in it had some songs by The Weeknd and Die Antwoord which I like!
I watch it in Norwegian (no subtitles) so I understand perhaps half of it but I get a good idea what's going on just by watching the acting, which is great by the way. Yes, I can go to Norway, Denmark and Iceland and get understood and understand what is being said in those countries by me speaking Swedish, the languages are very similar but also differ.



It's raining hard here today, I can hear the rain coming down on the roof. I went out to get my latte. Chhaya whined in the car all the way to Illumilatte.
Perhaps she doesn't like that we drive around when it's raining.



Last night I went to my friend's house for some glögg. She gave me some presents, a pretty necklace and something called a brainchip. If you want you can learn more about it www.brainpaths.com



Later today I have to attend an employee meeting at the cafe and we are having a Christmas party with gift exchanges. We all had to get a gift for $10 or less.
I could not find anything good for $10 so I got a trio of hand creames from Whole Foods for a bit more. I also gave everybody a bottle of Julmust and Dajm chocolates from IKEA and some peppermint bark. We are a total of eight people working (including the owners) so we are a small staff.
I think I am going to start the second season of SKAM now.

Last Monday I met up with Cindy for a photoshoot. We had decided to go out to Wheel Of Misfortune and it was my third time going out there. I have to say -that location is quite spectacular!
I had cancelled on this shoot several times for different reason (valid reasons) and I am so glad that we were finally able to pull it off. I hate being flaky, even when there is a valid reason.
So.....we drove out there, parked and quickly headed for the spot. It was Cindy's first time there. She loved it. Here are some pictures from our day......



If you don't see what I am holding it is a paint spray can. Plenty of those laying around there. And I also realized after viewing some of the pics that I should had worn nude underwear and not black, I should had definitely thought about that and not made that mistake. Bad planning on my part.



Touching up on some lipgloss. My make up is always rather minimal. I never wear foundation (shoots or in real life), never blush and I don't know how to do contouring and have no desire to learn. I do wear fake lashes and eye shadow, I blend the fake lashes with my natural ones with a brush dipped in black eye shadow and a coat of mascara. I dust my face with powder to control shine (I have oily skin). Some lipstick or gloss and I am done. If a make up artist is doing my make up I let them do whatever.....
During the day (normal life, not shoots) I don't wear make up.



This looked like a broken little robot or something to me. Cute.





On the way out of there we passed this wedding dress......quite amazing and eerie. Fits right in at the location and the theme. Perhaps a marriage gone bad or a wedding that never happened?



In the car on the way home. I had a fun day with Cindy. Hoping for a few good pics where I look nice.
Cindy said I looked like a barbie doll at one point (combo of good light, flowing hair and a pink top I was wearing). I feel like Stressed Barbie/Tired Barbie.



Then I came home to my baby. I would like to take Chhaya out to Wheel Of Misfortune one day and take some pics of her. There is lots of broken glass, rusty nails and random stuff there and you will get dirty.......so think about that if you are planning a trip out to see the place. So worth going though!

I woke up around 7 30 AM this morning, went downstairs and made myself a cup of coffee and crawled back in bed to read some stories online before starting a busy day.
And I came across this here
I started crying reading it halfway. SO SAD! Life can be so difficult and unfair, it doesn't make any sense sometimes. There are people struggling everywhere with heartbreaking issues. You never know what tomorrow will bring. If you are healthy - you have A LOT.
Santa Claus if you are listening......I want health for me and Chhaya and everybody that I know. I want a life free from physical and mental anguish for everybody on this planet. That is my wish Santa.....please!

When I have downtime at work I sometimes make myself a cup of tea, read the newspaper, turn up the music and sing loudly and dance (when nobody is in the place besides us staff of course), make sure we have enough to go boxes and to go cutlery made up and if not I prepare some, refill sugar dispensers, dust off the espresso machine.......
Everybody that comes in is nice and I truly enjoy adding some happiness to people's day with a yummy coffee beverage, or tea and desserts. But there was an older stern manly looking woman in the other day that did not like me upon entering, then she sat at a table with her family and glared at me. Like......OK lady feeling in a bad mood or something? What else.....oh, one of my co workers told me that she likes working with me because I am no drama. I was like.....THANKS! And then I said, "What kind of drama could there possibly be at a CAFE??? Now if we were in the strip club we could maybe talk about drama!" Oh yes, they know about my dancing. I told them. I have nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, I have plenty of examples of people that were never dancers that SHOULD be ashamed for being shitty people with questionable morals and no respect for themselves or others. I don't fit into that category. But back to drama.....I don't like drama, I find it so stressful, unfortunately I have been surrounded with a lot of drama producing people and getting more drama thrown at me than I could have ever wished for.





And look at our pet! His name is Basil.....as in homage to Basil the Rat from Fawlty Towers. I love Fawlty Towers.....I have all the episodes on VHS. And Andrew Sachs that played Manuel (I know nothing!) recently passed away......or passed on I should say. I spent many fun times watching Fawlty Towers with my brother - we share the same kind of humor.
So Christmas is around the corner. In Sweden we have advent. Basically a countdown to Christmas by lighting candle after candle until four candles are lit.



I miss my family for Christmas.......

Today I got emailed the latest "The Jackrabbit Speaks" which is a Burning Man newsletter. The theme for 2017 is decided and got revealed - Radical Ritual.
OF COURSE I am hoping to be there and take part of it but you never know! And today I got my Burning Man 2016 memorabilia done, better late than never, at least I got it done this year. My brother will be sent something similar. So the smaller bottle contains Playa dust, I have collected Playa dust every year I attended. And the larger bottle has the burnt sand with rocks Playa dust that I collected from the area the Man burnt at, with nails that held the Man together. Pretty cool I think!