Two off the Bucket list in a week!!

WTF you might say. And rightfully so!
Two off my personal life-Bucket list in a week??!!

It's true though.

Let me begin at the... beginning:

A loooooooong time ago, approximately six years ago (yes, a totally different life in every way) I felt I needed to get moving and exercising. I had no money, little time and a small child. What to do? I started jogging even though I loathed the idea of it.
It seemed boring, hard and not in the least exciting. I had some old shoes and worn out jogging pants and started by jogging slowly and then walking and back to jogging. This procedure started out with a 3 km route.
Slowly I upped the speed and after maybe three weeks I could skip the walking parts.
Progress felt good - I was now a person who was as jogger!

The years went on and I would go jogging every now and then. At certain months and periods I'd go regularly, at least once a week and others... well, not so often.
The initial six days a week process couldn't last after moving and having four hours of commuting daily.

Fast forwarding to year 2012 and the month of May.
I needed to find a routine. I needed to work out and I needed to loose weight gained from a hard period 2010-2011. The Boy's friend's parents praised a gym in town and I signed up. A man called Jan showed me the machines I ought to use and the crosstrainer and I went to it.

Came the month of August came a decision: I'll visit the gym three times a week (Monday, Thursday, Saturday) and I'll jog Sundays. Routine will be OK to break for work or AW and will mean no guilty conscience. It will be a way of life, so I will have the rest of my life to make routine!

Let me tell ya': this routine works!
At the same time I switched my then 20 minutes jog into a 30 minutes jog. After some months I felt I surely could double the jog and I could! By now I jogged approximately 7 km.

Fast forward until May 2013.
I decided "WTF it's time to jog those magical 10 km now!". It sure was and I did fine. It felt heavenly and such a personal achievement! Had someone told me even a year ago I would have said "I wish".

Go figure!
That's one off the Bucket List: jogging 10 km and I did Saturday.

Six days later I checked another off that Bucket: being part of a Eurovision Song Contest experience!
All my life I've followed this event. I and my maternal grandmother had it as a tradition and we would call each other to discuss it after we had seen it, when I was a child.
Friday I went with husband and last born to a dressed rehearsal semi final ESC-event and it was fantastic. Magical. We had a true blast and I'll never forget it.
If my first born and his gal would have accompanied, it would have been perfection :-)

There it is: TWO off the Bucket List in one week.
I doubt it I'll repeat that soon...?!

Other Buckets recent years were New York with my first born in 2010 and Venice in 2012.
How lucky I am!

All those mini buckets are being checked off regularly: BBQ is one!

Common BBQ sighting ;-)

She's quite cold, Mrs Summer, 8 degrees yesterday. But she's here!

The front side offers this sight, early in summer.

If computers and phones and stuff had been working with me, I would have showed you many shots and maybe even movies from the ESC-adventure. 

However, the iPhone with which I shot most photos and films deleted all my photos when trying to load them into the computer.

Hubs + iPhone + Mac is rarely a success story... I don't know why!!

Now I have only a few pics for you, from that blessed evening.

I'll show some Instgrams also :-)

(even that turned out a lie - because Instagram won't let you get out the pics out of Instagram... grrr.......)

Enjoy!

Me. Waiting for the other two, outside the arena!

The other two!

The arena!! The camera/crew/light experience was truly awesome!

The beautiful and fun host, who also suffers from severe back pains.

Loving every single minute of it! So much fun, such a warm heart <3

Going to Emporia (new huge luxurious mall) for dinner and... posing as Loreen!

Yay!

The iPad boy in iPad heaven!

The ESC nerds in ESC heaven.

Dinner after - lovely!

The train ride home.

So, here's Saturday again. Having longed for a sleep in, I was annoyed about waking up at 6 AM and getting out of bed around 7.... Ah, well! In a few hours I'll do my third jogging 10 km Saturday routine and as always I can't wait!! Chips are less tasty and wine too - 10 km jogging has topped everything for me. It's as crazy as wonderful.

Have a great one, out there. Remember your relations, and in this country: remember your mother tomorrow :-)

To choose each other

I've been thinking so much these last, say four, years. I have been feeling, wondering, questioning and even worrying. The upside of a forty year crisis arriving at 38 is that when you become forty, you're pretty much done with crisis:ing!
That's how it was for me.
My crisis also happened to come at the same time as I upped and moved away from my firstborn (a true hardship) and also started a new job with unexpected challenges, for which I was not prepared.

Having said that....

Here I now find myself being 42 and really enjoying life. Loving those I have in my life and as I've talked about repeatedly in this blog: really starting to like even myself. To think that should take so many years, eh?!
As hard as it is to grasp and to even want to grasp, liking (preferably loving) yourself is a solid ground to love your husband (or wife/boyfriend/girlfriend).
This spring has deepened that understanding for me.
My husband has had a hard year with unemployment, realizing his PhD has played out its part, no money to study for but deciding to study anyway. To live off of his wife's money and on a tight, very tight, budget.
At first he went blue.... Then he awoke his fighting spirit and kicks ass (hell yeah!) right now studying two full time educations at once.
I'm impressed and proud.
At the same time we never see each other because he also tries to find extra-job and summer-job and manages well in that effort. As if that wasn't enough he needs to do things that fills his well a little, too, so he engages in politics locally and engages in The Boy's soccer club.
Whoaw!

I'm left working, commuting and sneaking out to buy a few small things that we can't afford.
And exercising! Four times a week and loving it! Coming to realize it is a fab way towards loving me.

Here's the deal though, in this blog post, my husband and I choose each other.
For deep down real. Every day.
There has been many occasions we could have given up these last four years (well all our hardship-15-years actually!!), when things were hard, weird and we'd feel spent. But we didn't.
The day we decided to become a couple, we both knew it was for life and it is.
It's an amazing thrill to get into a grown relationship and last many years, facing hard times, sticking it out and then on the other side discovering how you both grew and changed and became "even better". More interesting, more glued together and more free in heart and spirit. More relaxed, more secure.

So almost 15 years down the path we choose each other every day and we laugh and have fun together. We choose to have fun together, it doesn't happen by itself, of course.

I've thought quite a lot about this since relationships around us end and couples break up and we're like: "what?".

I've been in an abusive relationship and know that kind of horror, of course you gnaw your foot off and run. But all these marriages ending, surprises me and makes me wonder about expectations and effort.
If nothing else, it makes me glad that I am so darn stubborn :-)

That's all I have today!
I will give you some foolish shots of me and Marcus, just to amuse you:

Enjoy your weekend all you lovelies and gourgeouses out there! Remember to take care of YOU.

<3

It's getting warmer..!

It sure is getting warmer and spring is definately here, without a doubt!
23 degrees up to 24 yesterday, here in the south, are today reduced to 12-13 so if spring did hesitate, I suspect summer will too?!
We're enjoying however and try to get into that chillful mode...!

Valborg passed by in flareful style with a happ-happ-happy boy!!

Hanging with friends by the Valborg fire.

The feeling is so special since I've visited Valborg fires every year (more or less) on the last of April.

It shouts out: springtime is here, folks!!

To hang with friends by the fire: oh, what a thrill :-)

Smoke filled the whole area...

Most of the time I'm enthused, energetic and enthusiastic. 

Come spring, comes a new level - the ecstatic one!! I feel like I can't wait. All the time. 

For what? No clue, mostly, just life. 

Mostly evening-life is what I long for. I keep loving my evenings. Evenings mean time off from work, time with family and time for relaxing in our "lounge" that I'm ever so pleased with!

I got to try out our lounge style living room on guests on Saturday and it worked like a charm!!

(now I can't wait to get rid of the sofas and lounge chairs and buy the ones I "really" want.... yeah like that's gonna happen any time soon...).

Babies like these can't put a damper on any kind of mood. Quite the opposite!

The season for mama birds having to chase off the predators, has come.

Ladybugs are welcome <3

There are some more happy folks about!

I love seeing the deck and the sky in the BBQ!

I rearranged some old furniture, at the entrance side, so hubs had to get busy dismounting 

the old table that totally blocked all vision of the only nice looking flower bed we have. 

Yes, the one that a previous owner planted :-D

Hanging with loved ones, mixed with getting texts from the firstborn, 

makes for good times! 

For these are the special times.

Look at that Rhubarb now!!!

So here we are, taking steady steps toward summer. Slow but steady.

I realise that vaca is coming up next month, the month of June. That feels surreal!

I, who never was the summer loving freak (since I for many years had bigger things to think about and didn't have time to be bothered with such small things as seasons) find myself recent years thinking I can't bare yet another winter after this summer. I don't want to!! Where should I move????

:-)

But, she's still coming up, sweet Mrs Summer.

Thank goodness.

Take care precious people out there, all around the globe! Nothing but love for you.