With a heavy heart

It is time to move on.
I will close this blog. For good.
I thought about this for a long time, went back and forth in my mind about what to do with it.
Should I change the name of the blog, what name could that be, what would I write about in the future...? The answer is that I don't have all the answers (yet).
I will be blogging in the future, I want to share and be/stay in touch with other bloggers and family and friends through this platform. I just haven't found the right way to do that yet. I have changed in many ways as a person, and in other ways I am still the same, and always will be. But for most of us the world around us changes too and we sometimes it is better to go with the flow.

I am not the same (hillybillyfarm)girl I was almost eight years ago when I first started this blog.
My first post I did in okt. 2008, two weeks after we had moved into a new house in a new country, starting a new life.
To get to where I am today has been a fantastic journey, and the most important thing is, that I actually have found a place, a country, where I really feel at home.
They say that "home is where the heart is" and my heart is right here in Sweden.
It is a beautiful country with a beautiful nature, clean air and mostly wonderful people.

I even applied for Swedish citizenship last week.
A new stage of my life, a new beginning. It will take approximately one and a half years until I get approval but that's basically just a formality.

It is time to thank you all that have followed and supported this blog throughout the years, some of you became true blogger friends and I am thankful for that.
Many of you will always stay in my memory and close to my heart, and I wish you all well for whatever it is that lies ahead.
Thank YOU!

With much love,

sincerely

Michaela aka Hillybillyfarmgirl


<3 p="">

Over and out...

My patience is being tested

It is cold outside!
Windy! And rainy!
Yes, we have sunshine coming through every now and then and that is nice! BUT I REALLY want it to be warmer now... !!!
This is the weather forecast for the next ten days, and unfortunately it will kinda stay the same for a while longer.
It is still too cold to sit and have a nice cup of coffee outside. (10 ℃ is 50 ℉)
That is really a bummer!!!

I'd so much like to continue with my gardening projects.
Yesterday afternoon, while it was nice and warm out back for about one hour,  I managed to set up a pallet and get it ready for planting some flowers (or maybe it will be strawberries) later on.
I found this idea on Pinterest and had to give it a try.

On the bright side.... it's actually "good" that the weather is like it is, and that I can't do much in the garden right now, cause the truth is, I can't do much anyways. Since about two weeks back I've been having a terrible backache and that keeps me not only from going to work, it keeps me also from doing fun stuff. Well, complaining doesn't help so I'll keep thinking "that too shall pass"! :D


Yesterday I finally got the canvas I ordered last week. It looks kinda small on the big wall but I am really happy with the quality of it. It shows a photograph I took last year while I visited my friends MJ and Toma in the US.
They live in Colorado and MJ took me on a road trip to Utah to go see the Arches in Arches NP. We also drove up to Dead Horse Point State Park where we overlooked a breathtaking scenery which reminded me a lot of the Grand Canyon.

The wild flowers in the following photo are called "vitsippor" and they are the very first wildflowers to grow in spring. And I am lucky, I have them in my back yard as well :D

Here's one more photo of my little "gardening-helper" Mausi, now seven months old. No one is more excited then she is when I am outside doing stuff! So curious and cute!

Have a good Friday everyone!

/Michaela :)

Spring always gives me hope!

Spring is my most favorit time of the year. 

And so is summer, and autumn..... and winter. ..No, not winter HAHA ;) 

Well, sometimes, under perfect conditions it is... 

Like.. snow on the ground, temperatures just below zero and sunshine on a mostly blue sky. Then, and only then I love winter :) 

Summer is wonderful too, I love all the wildflowers and how happy folks are when it is warm and sunny. 

Autumn has it's magical moments as well, the feeling one gets when everything in nature goes to rest, preparing for the most quiet time of the year. It is kinda peaceful when you take a walk through the woods on a foggy morning, foliage slowly falling from the trees... and all the colors! The colors are just gorgeous. 

But if I really had to choose a favorit time of the year it would be spring. 

Spring is magical. In all ways. 

Nature awakens, the colors of the first flowers and the time when every tree and bush turns green...! 

JUST WOW! 

Migrating birds in the skies above, songbirds sitting up on the branches singing the most beautiful tunes they know.... cranes dancing their love dance on the soon to be green meadows. 

Folks take their patio furniture out of storage and start up their grills... yes they do that here in Sweden really early!! 

Yes, spring is wonderful and honestly, I cannot get enough of it. 

I feel like a child sometimes waiting for christmas. 

I feel so hopeful for the future. 

It's like a new beginning, a new chance to do things better this year, to make the most of living and enjoying all the seasons and what they have to offer. 

There's hope for more sunshine in all our lives and to have more time to be spent with friends and family. Hope to get myself to exercise more, to spend more quiet quality time in nature, to eat healthy and live a healthier life style and to take more photographs...

Life is good in spring! 

Spring

A lot is happening, it is spring and that means that there's a lot to do.
I am thinking of writing a new post every day, I even think about what to write, and I started to take more photos again in order to be able to document what I've been doing....
Somehow the days are always too short and I never get to write another post.
I even got started writing but then I didn't get to finish.
But hey, lets see... maybe I'll get this one finished. LOL


I want to start with my cats Mika and Mausi (aka little mouse). Those past weeks have been a huge and very fun (and smooth I must add) transition, from having two somewhat frustrated indoor cats to now having two happy and balanced house buddies. They are able to decide when to go outside and inside whenever they please. They've adapted well to the surroundings and stay close to home.
They even brought home mice, in the middle of the night of course! One dead and one very much alive! Not so much fun when you have to get up 3am to set the poor thing free again before it gets killed...

Spring is here! Unfortunately it's still not very warm during the days (in the mid 50s) but we are happy about every sunbeam we can get.
And about the vegetation that starts to change, spring flowers in the garden and the woods, trees forming their first small green buds... that is (almost) the best time of the year!

I've also been busy in my leather shop. 

Made som Id-card holders for my coworkers. 

It is fun, and always nice to make an extra bucks here and there :)

 

I've been baking bread, here a gluten free version. 

In Sweden we call these "Kavring" 

The bread is sweetened and baked with baking soda, buttermilk or yogurt (or in this case with "Filmjölk", in Sweden we don't have buttermilk), gluten free flours and seeds and nuts. 

Not as good as "real" normal bread, but really the best gluten free recipe I've tried so far. 

This is the little "pond" that I have in my back yard, it will be a very fun project to fix it up.
So far I've cleaned away old foliage, and the grass, that has been growing all around. There is a little wooden patio right beside it, and I will turn that space into a really cozy spot where I can sit and chill on those nice Swedish summer evenings.
It is still too cold to plant aquatic plants though, I'll have to wait with that until the end of may.

I've been also busy with fixing those raised gardening beds I've wanted... bought 15 bags of garden soil. I had to load them into the car, unload them again and then I carried them up the stairs into my back yard... AND THAT gave me a really bad backache! I was on sick leave for an entire week and couldn't do anything. Fortunately I feel better now and I can at least do some household chores again.
But before all of that I got the raised gardening beds set up all right, and I filled them with some soil.
Can't wait to plant the seeds, and the small plants I've already been growing indoors.

Yesterday I tried out a new recipe, gluten free and no carb bread. ...

This is called "cloud bread", and, it's been surprisingly tasty. 

I've had it with fresh made lentil/vegetable soup and it was a delecious combo. 

One I can only recommend. A light and tasty dinner. 

And this morning I baked some more. Not cloud bread but "normal" easy and fast "baking powder bread". ...

It's time to eat some lunch, then I'll head out and meet a friend.
She is also a hobby photographer and we'll go for a hike with our cameras....
That will be fun and who knows, maybe I'll end up with a couple of nice photographs I can share with you in my next blog post.



Hope you'll all have a nice and sunny Sunday!

/Michaela

I am enjoying this Easter weekend, really! I am!

4 days off in a row, that doesn't happen too often. 

I cleaned the house,baked bread, started working on a new project in my leather shop, had dinner in town with extended family and friends, played a lot with my cats and watched a couple of movies. 

We've enjoyed some nicer weather, warming sunshine and the four minutes of additional daylight we are getting now every day... that feels great!

Winters here feel a lot longer then I am used to and that influences my mood from time to time. 

I have read a lot about Ayurveda over the past few months and have also gotten into Yoga. 

I teach myself as I go along, with the help of books, video tutorials on YT and yoga classes that are available online. 

The science of Ayurveda is about 5000 years old and originates in India. 

Ayurveda is a science of life (Ayur=life, Veda=science or knowledge) and I find that there is an amazing amount of wisdom in that lifestyle. 

My biggest challenge is probably that I am not very consistent and that I have bad self control, especially when it comes to my eating habits. 

I quit smoking a very long time ago, I never really liked drinking alcohol but I do love sugar. 

And I eat too much of it, it is as simple as that. Not as much as I used to, but I still feel in my body that it is too much. Less is always more when it comes to better health, just too bad that those pastries and cakes taste so darn good! 

But I won't allow myself to give up either so... !! 

I am kinda stubborn you know! LOL

I would really like to upload and post some nice photos from my mac, but since I've upgraded my Macs operating system to ElCapitan the other day, well somehow it doesn't work anymore, not how I want it to.... Dang!

And I wonder if it is possible to change the name of my blog. I'll have to look into it. "Hillybillyfarmgirl"... a name I feel like I've grown out of somehow.

Time to tidy up the apartment and make waffle batter, I'm expecting company this afternoon.

We're back on summertime now and I feel like I'm running short on one hour! Gotta hurry now!

LOL

:)

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Kindness

Kindness. 

That word stuck with me all week long. It is not something we just do... 

It is more then just a word or an action, it is a QUALITY. 

I thought of all the people I know, friends, family members, colleges and acquaintances and so called strangers. 

And I wondered are they truly kind? Superficial kind or deeply kind? How does it show? Or can someone be kind without showing it. 

Towards whom are we kind? Are we kind towards ourselves? Family members? Friends? Co-workers? Strangers? 

I searched my soul and asked myself how much kindness is there in me? Can I improve that quality in me and how? 

How can we love someone who doesn't seem to be kind at all? 

What are your thoughts on kindness? 

Happy Våffeldagen (Waffle-day) Sweden! And Happy Easter all around the world weather you celebrate it or not. 

Hope you all have kindness in your lives, one way or the other.

2014

2014 was a good year, I think.
It is hard to remember all the (small) good things because often we are so challenged with just staying afloat in a sea of busyness.

I'll enjoyed picking the photos for this post because it made me remember.

Scruffy fluffy Cleo. 

Spring 2014. Mika posing for the next post on Instagram.

Easter cake

First born calf. A new life is always magical

Spring walk with Cleo

 So pretty!

May 2014 - first BBQ of the season with friends

Getting into shape!

Bought them on the market

More quality time with Cleo, she had just turned 13.

I bought a boat! YEAH :)

Me and my mother. June 2014

Visiting me for the first time in Sweden, my mom and her partner.

...celebrating Midsommer together.

I started fishing in 2014.... My first Zander. 

A nice little perch. Very tasty fish! 

 It's really not so much about catching fish.... 

Picknick on shore

20014. It was an AMAZING mushroom year! 

Picking mushrooms is more fun then cleaning them! LOL

My first visit in Austria in over 6 years. 

My brother and my mom. October 2014

With my mom and my brothers family. 

My dad <3 p="">

December 2014. Christmas party with my coworkers.  The Swedes know how to party, believe me!!! 

I love all my coworkers. They make the good days at work even brighter and the bad days easier.

Dec 2014. My most favorite visitors. Cleo and Aaron <3 p="">

Up next ...2015

/Michaela