Struggling

I am struggling with a lot of things lately.

But they say "If there is no struggle, there is no process!" 

Well, I definitely feel that I am in a process and I hope I come out stronger then I have been before. 

About the struggles?

There is for one the struggle with time. The lack of time to do the things in life that are fun. 

Like blogging. 

Like meeting friends and spending time with them. 

Like finishing some of my current leather projects and starting new ones.

Like spending more time in nature, with my camera. Going places and taking hikes with my dog. 

Like learning how to kayak.  

Like reading more of other peoples blogs. 

Like spending more time just being.

Like learning more about food and cook better and healthier  meals.

Things like that. 

There is so much more!

I love my job, but I struggle with the hours we are forced to make. 

Our workdays are usually about 10-12 hours long, including breaks and there is a lot of waiting between the drives sometimes. Waiting and sitting, sitting and waiting.... 

And what to do during that time?

*Thankful* for the invention of SMARTPHONES with a fairly good camera. 

And what you then do is make "selfies" and photos of your surroundings. Most of them I share with my friends on Facebook and Instagram.

The last image Is the most recent one. A normal start of the day at work, me and my co workers take out the busses from the garage, get the heater going, program the destination signs on the bus and get ready to drive down to the station where we take up the first passengers. 

It is one of the nicer parts of the day, there is always some chat and laughter with the co-workers and that is important I believe. It raises the moral and gives you a good kick into the day, much needed sometimes when you start to work so early as we do. 

Yes, struggles I meat constantly, every single day. 

Some are minor, some are major HAHA 

I mean, I for example struggle with my eating habits. Yes! I do. 

I recently had to admit to myself that I am an over-eater. 

I love good food and I often eat way too much of it. Don't get me wrong, I am not fat, but I am at the same time not getting younger and stay on the right weight becomes harder and harder. Especially when you have a occupation where you sit on your butt up to 8 hours a day. 

About 5 months ago I made some changes to my diet. 

I started to eat after the principles of LCHF

Low Carb High Fat. 

And I like it. Although my body is still in the process of transitioning because of it, my body likes it and my blood sugar is really in balance for the first time in my life. 

LCHF has become very popular in Sweden and it helps many people to loose weight without being hungry all the time and it helps people who are diabetic (thank god I am NOT one of them) to lower their medication and raise the quality of their lives immediately. 

It is a very positive thing I believe. It is tuff, but for the most part I manage to stay away from sugar, wheat products like pasta and bread (and that of course includes gluten), and I stay away from artificial additives and fast food as much as possible. 

I'd like to loose a few kilos as well, It is not necessary but it would feel good to be a bit lighter. 

Some bodies react to this the diet changes directly and the pounds just disappear, but with some it takes a while until something happens. And in my case it takes a while I have found out... If you take away carbohydrates from your diet, your hormonal balance in the body has to adjust and it can take up to some months for the hormones to find their way back to a natural balance. 

I mean, honestly, no one really thinks about what food really does to the body right?! 

Food influences hormones in our body all the time, all kind of hormones, not just insulin. 

And those hormones influence each other. So if your insulin level constantly changes every other hormone in your body will be affected and try to create a healthy balance. But the sad thing is that the body hardly ever can do that and so we end up stressing our body and we get diseases. 

So, when you eat carbohydrates all the body is simply a mess. 

And when you leave them out it can take months or even longer for the body to "get healthy" hormone levels again - to become balanced. Well, it is hard to explain and I am no doctor either, so I'll just leave it at that :D 

But, the thing is, I struggle. 

I am addicted to sugar, as most of this planets population. It is what I miss most, the cakes and cookies, honey, maple sirup and sweet fruits like oranges etc....  and it is really hard sometimes to keep up the discipline :(
It's what makes me eat more (of everything I am allowed to eat) then I would need to eat in order to maintain a good energy level throughout the day.

Well well...

...it is as they say: "If there is not struggle, there is no process!" Right?!?

Another thing I struggle with is to be alone. Since the seperation last July I have had lots of ups and downs. 

There are times where I love to be alone, to be able to spend time with just myself and my cats and Cleo (when she is visiting on weekends) and I love to be able to decide to do what ever I want, when I want it and how. And If I decide to do nothing at all, that is okay too. :) 

I enjoy silence. I enjoy listening to music and I enjoy that I don't have to share the remote control with anybody. :D 

But there are days where if feels empty. Where it makes me feel sad to come home into an empty house. I miss sharing my life with that one special person you want to share almost everything with. 

Special moments are even more special if you can share it with someone that cares about you, isn't is so. 

But again... "If there is no struggle, there is no process, right?!! 

So... since it is saturday, since the sun just starts to break trough the morning clouds

it is time to finish this post and get my butt out of bed. Out into the fresh spring air and take the dog (which got a her spring haircut last night) for a walk. And I'll of course take my camera along with me.... you just never know... 

/Michi

PS: I really see now that I need to change the looks of this blog... it's outdated and I crave for spring colors...!!!! Looking forward to that :)

No prediction can ever be a 100 %

I didn't believe in the weather forecast from the beginning. They said we will get snow in the weekend, it will get nasty. Sure, we had nasty gusty winds, trees fell at lots of places, but hey, we also had lots of sunshine during the weekend. :)

Cleo and I went for walks on saturday and had a good time. The photo was taken on another occasion when it was a bit colder though ;) 

Aaron is also doing fine. He's a grown up dog now and he recently got a grown up collar - which I made myself :D 

And then, of course I spent time with my two wonderful cats Missy Lou and Mika. 

They love to cuddle and just hang out with me in my leather workshop. 

And last but not least, here's some of the work I did in the weekend. 

I started a few new wristbands, they all still need a coat of finish and the snaps need to be attached. And with the two with the punched holes will have to attach some synthetic stones. Cool stuff. 

And! The best thing is that I will soon be selling some of those wristbands in a local country store :D :D 

Not much blogging going on.

Hi,
Yes, it's been a while since my last post.
Someone said not too long ago "I miss your blog".
I miss it too.
It was fun sharing our everyday life and meeting all of the other bloggers who I used to "visit" every day  -and they'd visit back.
Good times.

But life has changed quite a bit. Working full time and long working days, that is how my life looks like mostly. In my free time I have acquired a new hobby.
I work with leather.
I make wristbands, belts, dog collars and quivers for horseback archery.
It is still a hobby, but I hope that it will become a hobby with an extra income. My dream/goal is that I can do less of what I do for a living right now and do more leatherwork.

I just started to put together a homepage where I present my produkts, but it is a long way from finished.
The homepage runs with WordPress and it includes a blogg section.
I have no idea how active I will be there and what kind of things I will be sharing - probably just things about my leatherwork. I guess.

the address is

www.michisleatherwork.com

just in case someone wants to check it out ;)

Well, other then that... what is there to report from Sweden?

We had a mild winter here in south Sweden, not much snow at all, but we had many grey and rainy days in exchange. I would have really preferred snow and sunshine...
But then we were surprised that spring decided to spoil us really early this year, about two weeks ago the first cranes arrived and one week prior we were happy to see flocks of geese heading north.
Really early!!!!
But I guess they know what they are doing those birds.
This past week we have been enjoying lots of sunshine - and that was really needed after all those grey months with little daylight.
Sure, there is still always that chance that we could get some snow, but hey, we've come that far so we just keep being positive and are enjoying the longer days.

Soon my break is over, only a few more hours to go here then I'll go home and get lots of needed rest this weekend. And I'll be doing some leatherwork.
Because it's fun :)

Hej så länge,

Michi