Day 53 and 54 - Circus Maximus

Between two of Rome's seven hills - Aventine Hill and Palatine Hill (the latter can be seen in the background in the top picture - the ruins), you'll find our next stop; Circus Maximus, where the Romans raced horses and chariots. The stadium was built in the 6th century BC. It measured 621 m in length and was 118 m wide. Back in its day it could hold over 150 000 spectators, but today it's simply a park, and you can walk along the racetrack yourself.

The stadium is actually in both pictures. The bottom picture is what you see if you cross the road in the top picture (and you can actually see the other end of the stadium in the top picture, just below the trees in front of the ruins). It's another of those places that are larger in person. Standing by the edge of it, looking down at the people strolling along the track is really something.

/MrsHjort

Day 41 and 42 - The Guardroom

Yesterday was an unusual day. We took one of our cats to the dentist and the poor thing had four teeth pulled. She's got a dental illness, so once a year we take her to the dentist and each time she is returned to us with less teeth. All of her molars and premolars are gone now and she only has her incisors and three canines left. It's always painful to watch her go through it, but in the end it's for her best. It has to be done or she will be in more and more pain as time goes. It's just hard to see her all groggy and weak as she suffers the aftereffects of the sedation and the general damage a tooth removal does to a kitty. So, yesterday was spent taking care of her and making sure she was okay.

Today's pictures are from a guard room in Castel Sant'Angelo. From the looks of things I'd say it used to be a nice enough place, with its own fireplace and a window. I can almost picture the officer sitting in the chair talking to his men on the bench.

It's funny how some places have that impact on you and some don't. Somehow I find it easier to picture the past in places like this, where the common folk hung around, than in fancy rooms with tapestries. Maybe because their lives were closer to mine than the nobility's were - I've had many jobs in my day - from assembling chain saws and sowing machines or packaging raw meat to teaching, and now, working in the field of law, and though I now have a cushy white collar job, I know full well what it's like to be a laborer. Jobs like that build character I think, and though they may be monotonous or gritty, they certainly have their charm, especially if you have a great team around you. Some things are universal and transcend space and time. Gritty jobs is one of them and fun coworkers is another. It makes it easy to picture the guards sitting on that bench, chatting merrily before the morning briefing...

/MrsHjort

Day 13, 14 and 15 - The View

Sorry again, it's been... I guess "hard" is the right word... these past few days and I haven't had the time or energy to do my daily shots. Like I said when I started this; I've been on medication during our trip. Coming home I had to taper it down, since my doctors don't want me on it, and as a good compliant patient I tried my hardest to do so...

Going to Rome and realizing what I am supposed to feel like - having the energy I used to have before I got sick, being able to take walks again etcetera... spoiled me... is that the right word? I don't know... I don't really have a word for it but tapering back down to zero meds became extremely hard once I had a reference to what I should feel like. My health has declined so slowly over so long a time I hadn't really noticed how bad it had gotten. Going from being an ordinary person, to a person that feels super tired and confused all the time no matter how much I sleep, to being short of breath again, to having aching joints and super dry skin... I just couldn't... how could anyone? When you know that one little pill can make you feel so much better?

Anyway I contacted my doctor and he made me promise to try to go back to a minimal dose, so that's what I've been trying to do these past weeks, but it just didn't do it for me. I felt a tad better than before, sure, but feeling a tad less like something the cat dragged in is was way short of being on an acceptable level. Yesterday I gave up and went back up a dose, and now I feel like a human being again. A wonderful feeling, something you only understand if you've been chronically ill yourself. A healthy person can endure much when they fall ill because they know that it will pass, but imagine it being never ending... Anyway, I just wanted to explain why I've been missing a few days lately, and wow did it turn out way longer than I planned...

So... these shots are of the view from Terrazza delle Quadrighe. In the first picture you'll see the roof of the Panteon, and behind it to the right the Supreme Court. The second picture shows the Roman Forum and the third is of the Colosseum of course.

You also get a bonus shot today. It's of a seagull that landed right on top of the telescope that Mr was looking through. He I didn't even realize it was sitting there until I told him to look up haha. Boy did he freak out! I didn't get a shot of it actually sitting there though, that would have been too funny. 

/MrsHjort

Day 1 - Poppy

So, It's finally time to start a brand new 30 day Challenge on DaggerBay, and thus I'm blowing life into my old blog again.

First off I want to jot down a few explanatory words to tell you why you haven't seen a lot of me lately. Those of you who know me in person may already know, but this past year has been quite hard on me. Basically I've been dealing with health problems. Without going into too many details, it has meant cutting back on many things, including my participation on DaggerBay. So my blog has been very quiet these past months. My condition has been having a big impact on my day to day life, and it is only recently that things have started to turn around for me. I've finally arrived at the top of the list to see the medical experts that can help me, and I have finally gotten some medicine that helps. I'm so glad to finally have enough energy to get my creative juices flowing again and I look forward to doing this challenge with all of the amazing photographers that have chosen to join me. Just to say though, however happy I am to be able to do the challenge, this past year I've learned never to take anything for granted, so, even though I'm (knock on wood) feeling better at this moment, things may change, and I may need to take a step back again. Cross your fingers for me!

With my current condition in mind, my month's theme will be quite simple - things found in my garden. This shot is my second experiment with a 10+ close-up lens filter. It enables me to get much closer to my subjects but has the drawback of limiting me to a very narrow depth of field. The result is quite dreamy, don't you think? :)

/MrsHjort

Day 23 - Joy

If you like birds, Riva del Garda is a nice place to visit. Not to say that there are rare birds there, I really wouldn't know, but there are plenty of them and there were baby birds everywhere when we were there. Some of them were pretty used to people too, as you can see. Mr could hardly contain himself with joy as these ducklings marched towards him going "pip pip pip" :) The mother was nearby and kept a watchful eye on them, but she let him pet them for quite a while. If I hadn't had my camera so close at hand I would have been jealous, but getting to preserve this moment was a pleasure.

/MrsHjort

13 Hours of Christmas

So, as I was crazy enough to sign up for a 12 hour challenge on Daggerbay, here goes! Here's 12 hour of Christmas with our jolly, loud and exuberant family :)

8:24 
I wake up with my usual sleeping buddies, meaning Mr and this little lady, who continues to watch over my morning routines hehe. It's the morning of Christmas eve, which is when Swedes celebrate Christmas, and the family will come over in the afternoon - meaning, lots to prepare!

9:22
Rather than showing you a bunch of shots of me cleaning our house, I though I'd share this little Christmas favorite of mine - this knitted Santa my grandmother made me back when I was a child. She was a wonderful lady, who always knitted us beautiful things. I still get tear in my eyes thinking of how much love she pored into it all. I remember how she apologized for running out of the red yarn half way up the red coat of this wonderful creation. That was my Grannie haha,  I've always loved it... How I miss her!

10:06
Mr is the boss in the kitchen, he's so much better at it than I am and I'm very happy to let him run the show. He's a wonderful cook! I have to watch my weight with him around. It's way to easy to eat too much when everything he makes is so delicious. Here he is preparing one of the upcoming Christmas dinner dishes, and enjoying a Swedish Christmas drink - glögg (a sort of mulled wine, that we drink with almond flakes and rasens).

11:42
I've long since given up on trying to convince the rest of the family to restrict the Christmas prezzies to the children alone. Most Swedish families don't buy Christmas presents for everybody, you see, but do "secret Santa" or some kind of raffle instead, and some even do Christmas games where you have to win your presents. Not our family though, nope! We go above an beyond haha! This isn't even all of the presents, it's not even half of them! It's a big hassle to buy one for everybody - and I hate shopping - but I have to admit, nothing beats the atmosphere of antecipation and joy that they bring. The children can hardly keep their fingers away waiting, and we have to keep them from examinering the presents a little too closely.

12:01
Getting snow for Christmas in Sweden is more unusual than you'd think, or well at least it is where I live. I'd say the chance is about 50/50. You see, we live by the second largest lake in Sweden, and it helps keep the area warm in the winter. So, if you go up to the "highland" from where I live, you can go from this, to a whole lot of snow in a short distance. It's kind of nice in the autumn, because it delays the cold and keeps our streets free from ice a bit longer than everywhere else, but it decreases our chansers of a white Christmas, and it delays spring. Sometimes it even freezes over, and that's when you know spring will be unusually late. It's a very cold and deep lake... It's very rarely freezes though. Also, being so deep, it seldom gets warm enough for one to want to go for a swim in it - it takes a lot of time to heat all that water. It's beautiful though, and very clean. As you can tell, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship to it haha.

This is the view from our attic. The lake is in the distance, and, as you can see, we didn't get any snow this Christmas. There was ice-rain though, a lot of good it did us, ha!

13:02
The first guests arrive! My parents, always early and just as happy as you see them here. Sweden is like that. If you're expected to come at a certain time, people will show up right then, and not a moment later. Being more than 10 minutes late is rude, and it's better to show up 10 minutes early. Many of my friends from abroad shake their heads at that haha! But anyway, these are my parents. Swedish mother, American father. They met on a stroke of luck when on a holiday in yet on other country, and now here they are :)

14:10
I don't know how common these are outside of Sweden, but we eat these "prince sausages" every Christmas, along with loads of other traditional food, like meat balls, Jansons frestelse, herring, turkey and much, much more. It's where the word smorgasbord comes from - smörgåsbord. Since our family is kind of large, we do potluck. It would simply not work otherwise, and so each of the guests bring their assigned dishes, and, as hosts, we try to coordinate the best we can. That's where Mr comes in, and I'm very happy to leave all that stuff to him :)

15:58
This is Mr carving the Christmas ham. That's the super star of the Swedish Christmas foods and it's preparation is a science of its own. Mr has been experimenting for years to get it better and better. First you have to pick the right one, be it a pig or wild boar, then it has to be boiled and baked in so or so many degrees for this or that long. Mr has gotten really good at it - even I who don't particularly enjoy ham, like the way he makes it.

16:15
Tada! All the dishes are finally heated and ready! They're so many they don't even fit into the picture, that's not even mentioning the desserts. We actually forgot one of the dishes in the refrigerator this year - my mother's orange and walnut sallad. It's one of my personal favorites, yum! I cannot believe we forgot it.... eeeer well, okay then, yes I guess I can really, there are just so many dishes (and I've got a cold, so my head isn't quite screwed on right), so, it's a wonder it doesn't happen more often really haha. Oh well, it tasted just as good this morning as we ate some of the leftovers. That's a wonderful thing to have every Christmas day - lots of yummy leftovers when you're too lazy to make breakfast. We'll have leftovers for days, even though we sent all our guests home with food too!

17:27
After dinner things calm down a bit, and we all sit down, too tired from eating all the food to do anything sensible. Just like it should be. Food is half the spirit of Christmas in Sweden. At this point, we just sit down and enjoy each other's company, catching up about whatever and talking about nothing in particular. I really enjoy when the whole family gets together like this, both my side and Mr's. All the people I love under one roof, what could possibly be better? If the food makes up one half of Christmas, family makes up the other.

18:02
The Children's wait is over and Santa has finally arrived! It's all a bit weird though, as all the presents have been under the Christmas tree all day, haha, but luckily the children don't think of that. Mr was worried he wouldn't be able to fool them this year - the girl in this picture was a bit suspicious last year and suspected it was him under that white beard. So, he bought a better costume and though up a better cover story to explain why he had to leave all of a sudden. He was so happy when it worked! The magic of Christmas got to endure a year longer, yey!

19:19
It's desert time! After everybody has opened their presents, it's the perfect time for sweeties. In this picture you'll see two of the Swedish classics. First, there's the orange rice, which is not to be mistaken by rice a la Malta... seriously, don't! Or my father in law, who made it, will explain it to you, in full detail haha. That's actually also one of the traditions. Not a Christmas goes by without that particular lecture. He has also made the other sweet in this picture - the controversially named ball... Don't ask, I'll just leave it at that ;)

20:51 (bonus)
Our evening ends with Christmas quizzes. They're not usually about Christmas, or the same questions would pop up every second year or so, but about trivia in general. I'm the worst at that sort of thing! Mr though, won both of them, the brainiac that he is. Just don't tell him I said so ;)

So there you go! 12 hours of Christmas, plus one extra bonus hour. I've never made this challenge before, it was a lot of fun!

Merry Christmas everybody!

/MrsHjort

Day 20 - White Door

An other Saturday and we're hosting yet another birthday party. It's quite fun do get to celebrate my birthday almost the entire month haha. This time it's with my family. We had planned to invite them all earlier, but both Mr and I were sick back when we had planned to host the family dinner, so we had to cancel. We're still not 100% well, this dang cough just never ends, but we're definitely well enough to celebrate, eat cake and enjoy ourselves.

As usual Mr prepared my cake, and as usual he has outdone himself! He tries to make the cakes larger and more yummy each year haha. So, this year it's a 8 layered cake, with 30 written in blueberries on top, and a lot of fruit and berries inside. Yum yum yum! I'll try to take a picture and show you the masterpiece.

See you tomorrow

/MrsHjort

Day 8 - 10 Merriment, Music and Heart

Sorry for posting so late! I've experienced some internet problems - we haven't had a connection in three days. Our household has just gotten optic fiber installed, and ironing out the odds and ends took some time. But now it's up and running, and considerably faster than before! Yey!

Day 8 - Merriment

The photo above is a "right in the moment" type of shot. I saw this group of beautifully dressed men and women greeting each other, and snapped a whole bunch of photos of them, hoping to get one that was okay. Anyone who has taken pictures of a a group of people knows how hard it is to get all of them right at the same time, and that's not even speaking about candid pictures, like this one. The lady on the right sort of makes a funny face, biting her lip like that, and the lady in blue just moved behind the lady in front of her, but I still like it. The energy of the group mirrors what is was like to be there perfectly. It was joyous, warm and very dynamic.

Day 9 - Music

This violinist played beautifully as she walked up and down the street. Thankfully, there wasn't much people there, so I could take her photo without too many distracting elements getting in the way and choose my angles without worrying about people walking into my shot. It's such a luxury to get to do that! Only too often I find myself waiting for people to move out of the picture when I'm shooting something, and when they're finally out of the way, others take their place. Shooting stuff in crowds is hard!

I really shouldn't complain though, I'm very fortunate to have gotten so many decent photos from that day. I only expected a few of them to meet my standards. My camera is getting kind of old and sluggish, you see, so I have to say that I'm very happy with the crop of pictures that I've gotten. Soon things will be different though... I'm awaiting an upgrade! I turned 30 a few days a go, and one of my presents is a brand new camera! A Nikon D7100! I can't wait until I get my hands on it, and I'm so looking forward to testing all of the new functions I'll have access to. 

Day 10 - Heart

I don't usually go for a central subject, but in this case it seemed fitting. The pose and the direction in which he is looking made me go against my usual preferences. I just couldn't crop away his arm and cropping away the "air" on the right side would leave him looking like he was moving out of the picture, and no one likes that. So, central subject is was!

If you're wondering about the pose, despite of the how things may look, it's actually a candid shot. This man was standing listening to the Scottish bagpipe music and dreamily looking into the distance as they played "Amazing Grace". You can even see a pipe in the shot in the unedited version below. So it seems, I was not the only one moved by the music :). It was truly beautiful.

/MrsHjort

Fun in the Sun

Spring has arrived, no scratch that, summer has arrived, skipping spring almost entirely this year. Here's a picture of someone who very much enjoys the sun and the feel of fresh new grass under her little kitty feet. The cats are always so happy when they get to go outside for the first time of the season. If you've ever seen cows released into the fields, you know what I'm talking about. They may not be as jumpy and intensive, but they're positively giddy and go around smelling everything like it's the first time again.

I'll see you out in the sun :)

/MrsHjort

Day 6 - Portrait of a Playful Man

Many of you will recognize this person, and the kitty too I think. This is Mr and Freya :)

I shot this for a contest about three years ago but I ended up going with a different picture since this one didn't quite strike my fancy at the time. The shadow on the right bugged me and the lens I used made a shadow in the lower right corner. This was before my external flash... Now that I've added a vignette to the shot those thing do not bother me as much anymore though...

I'm glad this finally got to see the light of day. It's one of those rare pictures where Mr doesn't look uncomfortable. Maybe because he is holding Freya haha, she on the other hand, looks a bit like she'd rather stand on her own four paws. They make a cute pair nevertheless :D

/MrsHjort

Love, Fun and Color

True love is when your hubby calls you to say "Go get your camera! There's a Rainbow outside!" Mr does by no means share my interest for photography, so it was very sweet of him. He didn't even try to mess with me! You see, in our marriage, whenever the one of us is in a hurry or wants to end the call for some reason, the other will try to prolong the conversation in stupid ways, like faking sadness and asking "don't you want to talk to me?" or starting to ramble on about various stupid stuff. Weird I know, but that's us, we're constantly messing with each other like that haha. It's all in good fun.

Anyway, I was so glad to finally get to shoot some color today, and what could be more colorful than a rainbow? I have been longing to do colorful nature shots for a very long time now, and I just realized the reason for why I haven't done much processing lately. Winter colors are just too boring! Thankfully spring is just around the corner, but for now, I'll have to settle for this rainbow. Not half bad :)

/MrsHjort

Happy Easter

I have really been neglecting my blog lately. Dagger Bay is taking up much of my time (but it's so much fun) and work has been busy too (I love it though). In the meantime spring has finally arrived, and colors are returning to the world outside my windows.

This spring is something extra. Maybe it's because last time I didn't have the time to enjoy it. Sure I'm busy now too, but it's a positive kind of busy. The kind of busy that is about building new things, enthusiasm, creativity and drive.... about that feeling of moving forward and accomplishing something. I am very happy right now. Life couldn't be better. It feels so good to be able to say that.

This is a shoeboxd picture. I shot it years ago but it has never seen the light of day because of some slight focus issues. I can't help but love it though. The low angle in combination with the light and colors is so pretty. It's very "Eastery", if there is such a word haha.

Happy Easter to all of you!

/MrsHjort

Dagger Bay is Live!!!

The first contests have just closed and the winners have been pronounced, two of them actually, including yours truly. Yey!

The first contest was "Pirate Portraits", what else? We are all pirates after all. We all abandoned ship when our old flagship sank and built a new one from scratch, filled with enthusiasm and drive. I'm so happy it's finally afloat. It's long from finished though, there are a lot more things to add and develop, but the basic features are there. So go! Check it out, come, join the fun at Dagger Bay (if you haven't done so already)! The contests are up and running and the community will blow you away!

It's all like a great adventure to me, it's a bit bumpy, but the shear joy of all of the amazing people who have moved with us is simply amazing! They don't care that things aren't perfect yet, they're not even complaining, nope! Instead they cheer us all on, and it makes me so happy, because they are what makes Dagger Bay so amazing! The spirit of W1K lives on, and we're all so very grateful to the person behind it all, who is building this new amazing home for us. Hipp hipp hurrah for devilmoon! Our fearless skipper with a heart of gold!

/MrsHjort

18:17 - Ceberations

This series ends with a nice glass of the bubbly. Mr and I have finally, finished renovating our house! Today! We've been at it for almost three years, but now it's finally the way we want it.

We've done it all, name it, we've probably done it! We've re-plastered the facade, changed the windows, redone one kitchen and torn out another (yes we had two), "bricked up" a door, torn down a wall and moved another, renovated one of the  bathrooms, painted everything, built sliding door wardrobes, changed all the floors and now, remade the washing room. And that's not even mentioning the garden...

Aaaah, it's nice to be done with it all. Now we'll just wait a few years before starting over again :P

/MrsHjort

17:57 - Right where I Left You

There just had to be a shot of Freya in the bunch. She's too much a part of the daily routine to skip. She's right beside my pillow as I wake up in the morning, she follows me around the house wherever I go, and she's always sitting in the window when I get home from work to welcome me home. Talk about loyalty.

Aren't pets wonderful?

/MrsHjort

17:13 - Friday Treat

I love Fridays, for obvious reasons. Each Friday I like to sit up late and tinker with stuff on my computer, whilst treating myself for having made it through the week. Ah, I love Fridays!

This is something that is very typical for Sweden - the "Semla". It's a bun filled with almond paste and whipped cream. You can find it in every bakery between November and March, it has even got a day of it's own called "Fettisdagen" which occurs the 9th of February this year - yey, an other excuse to get one, they're so yummy!


Happy Friday!

/MrsHjort

09:25 - Morning Fika

If you've ever been in Sweden, you know of our obsession with fika - sitting down together to eat sandwiches/baked goods while drinking tea/coffee. A work day simply isn't complete without it! It's part of the routine!

My workplace is no exception, and we're very fortunate! Our employer actually lets us buy the fika with company money. Fika has reached whole a new level at my office, advancing into full blown breakfast. Freshly baked brad, cheeses, salamis, and veggies are some of the standard features. Yum yum yum!

/MrsHjort

Busy Busy Busy

As you most likely gathered by my last post, there's a lot to do right now - starting a new site is a lot of hard work! Don't get me wrong though, I absolutely love it! I'm totally addicted to Dagger Bay already! Creating a place for the spirit of our old home to live on in is so much fun! There are so many new ideas and discussions floating around. It's very inspiring! We are so fortunate! So many amazing people have chosen to join us, and they've brought a truckload of enthusiasm and zeal with them. So, let me say thank you, to all of ye fellow pirates out there! If you read this, I want you to know how thankful we all are for your input. We want our new home to be worthy of you! Keep those creative juices flowing ;)

Cheers

/MrsHjort

New Beginnings

It's a brand new year, filled with new possibilities, surprises and adventures! Time to move forward and start fresh. And, with that in mind, what could be more fitting than a new favorite online hangout spot?

As some may know, the well known site Worth1000 has changed owners and is in the process of moving. Nobody likes change, but I have kept an open mind throughout the process and have been willing to give the new place a chance. As it turned out, the new place offered is not even a shadow of the awesomeness that is W1K. Thus, for many reasons, of I which won't ramble on about here, I have chosen not to stay on...

Instead I chose a fresh new home. And what could be better than a place developed by one of our own? A well known "Worthian" who knows what the site is about and has been a contributing member of the community for a long time. Color me impressed when I heard the news that a new home was in the making, and my jaw dropped even further when I saw what this one person had accomplished in only one month! It's so much more than that other place, and I just know it's going to be grand when it's finished!

My new home is being created by a generous person, who has put in hours and hours in it's making. It is called Dagger Bay and it's growing, fast! Just one week ago we were only a handful of members, and now there's 119 of us. Now if that's not impressive I don't know what is! It's a true testimony to just how awesome this place already is. When most of a community's most active members move to the same place, you know it's good. And that is just what has happened here. Wow!

Dagger Bay is currently just a forum, but things are happening fast and soon we will be able to host all sorts of contests - effects, photo, illustration, writing, multimedia and strips (BotS)! We're aiming at adding more familiar features as time passes and, in time, I think it has the potential to become even better than what we had. The drive and passion of creation drives us forward and I just love the joy of it all. Dagger Bay has found its way into my heart faster than I could ever have imagined.

I hope my shameless promotion of Dagger Bay hasn't scared you away haha. I just really really want to get my feeling across. Please come join us! If you know us, let me tell you that we're still that merry old bunch you're so familiar with, and if you don't, then I'll tell you that you couldn't find a better community out there, com join us and find out what a fun gang we are :D

/MrsHjort

Nr 31 - Happiness

Congratulation again to all who made it!

In addition to being an homage to essjaynz, LetItBeFun and Regoch who made the whole moth following the word list in their own individual and o so wonderful ways, this shot is an acclaim to kimbomac who shot such lovely texture images every day. It's also a salute to sectretatlantis, and her marvelous search for the light, and I do believe she got it right! The shallow focus is a tribute to purplefrog, who delighted us with her use of DOF. This is also on the theme of abstract patterns and shapes, which is what sfalice dazzled us with this month. And finally, the picture is monotone therefore a bow to JustLou, who managed to get her beautiful rainbow in the end.

And now to why this shot is "happiness" to me... Fist off, it's yellow which has always been the number one happy color to me, and that's the reason why we painted our bedroom mango yellow. It's a shot of a piece that is very dear to me. It symbolizes our current home in many ways and it evokes many fond memories of past times. Also it's made of things you can bring home with you from trips to sunny warm places, which is very much happiness to me.

Can you guess what it is?

/MrsHjort