Day 26, 27 and 28 - Fontana di Trevi

So, I missed a few days again. But don't worry, I'm fine! I am still doing well on my medication. It's just that I overexerted myself a bit one day, had to rest the next one and now I'm back! That's the thing you see, even on medication I have my limits but it's no way near as limiting as it used to be. It's simply that I went a bit overboard since I felt invincible one day and had to pay for it the next. That's just the way the cookie crumbles, but now at least I think we're getting close to a name. So many things have been crossed off my list that there are only so many things left that it could be and I'm growing more and more sure of which one of those things is my thing, and that's a great thing :).

This is the Trevi fountain, named after the district in which it is placed. It was designed by Nicola Salvi. Construction started in 1732 and it was finished after Nicloa's death by Panninni in 1762. The theme of the fountain is "the taming of waters" and it depicts the taming of sea horses, as you can see on the left in the middle pic.

This is another of my favorite places in Rome. I came here not expecting anything really. I'd heard the fountain was pretty but I had also heard that the crowds were pretty bad so I didn't expect to enjoy it really. I am one of those people who hates being in large groups of people. But the area around the fountain was not that bad, and the crowds were calmer than I expected. Lots of people sure, but people chilling out marveling at the beautiful pieces of art enjoying the sun. The fountain was more beautiful that I expected too... A wonderful spot to stop and just enjoy the view.

Mr couldn't leave the fountain without tossing in a coin. Actually he tossed several since I'm a picky photographer who want things a certain way. I'm so glad I managed to get this clean shot of him at just the right time. If you look closely, you'll see a "coin". That's fake though as I have no idea where the real one went. I edited in a replacement in post ed just for fun. It wasn't until right this moment, when I researched the fountain, that I learned he had tossed the coin the wrong way. You see, traditionally you're supposed to toss the coin with the right hand over the left shoulder. Oh well, it's the thought that counts and I still love the picture :)

/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 27 - Lions and Vines

I have a feeling that this combination of lions and vines found above the door is not very common outside of France. At least it felt very french to me. I love little details like that, they convey the heart and soul of the places they're in.

The village surrounding the castle looks like it came straight out of the fairy-tales, and this shot is typical of what it looks like - very authentic, filled with lovely flowers and oh, so beautiful! You could easily film a movie set in the medieval ages here, or why not an episode of Game of Thrones? Remove a few modern details, like the lamp, and I could see Daenerys stopping here on her way to Westeros :).

I was a bit surprised to find out that people actually live in this beautiful place. Walking through the streets, I thought that it felt closer to a museum than a place where you park your car and go inside to relax on the sofa. What a lovely place to live. I envy the people ho get to call this place home.

/MrsHjort

Day 18 - Gunpowder

This is me trying out fake DOF on a still life in order to make distracting stuff in the background less distracting. Did it work? Or did I just blow in by telling you haha. I like the result nonetheless, even though this is a very brown shot (I'm no fan of the color).

I am a fan of olden things though. I think it's my next favorite thing to shoot, right after nature. There are just so many wonderful textures to be found on the surfaces of aged stuff.

There is also something very attractive about things that have been made by hand. They're not perfect like the massproducerad stuff you see everywhere nowadays, and those little "imperfections" make them much more interesting. A little wonkiness, asymmetry or a crack or two... nothing wrong with that. Great stuff, it shows character :)

/MrsHjort

Day 10 - Lemon

This drink is very typical of Sweden, 10 points to to anyone who can guess what it is. We usually drink it around Christmas and Easter, it's a Swedish tradition and I used to long for the holidays just because I would get to drink this. I'll give you one more clue; it's made from juniper berries and it tastes sweet with a bit of a bitter aftertaste. Can you guess what it is yet?

It's Julmust! And not the ridiculously sweet soft drink version, but the real thing, made from real berries in a small "musteri" in Brunneby. Good stuff, I just love it with lemon :)

Cheers!

/MrsHjort

Day 4 - Pottery

As I went hunting for pottery in my home today, I found out that I don't have much of it (not counting porcelain of course). In fact, I was so discouraged, I went to several stores after work to see if there was any nice looking pottery to buy, only to find out that A. all stores had more or less the same stuff, and B. none of it was to my taste. Things seemed bleak... I couldn't shoot the tea pot again - I've done that before and it would be boring, neither would my plates do - too boring, nor my vase - too boooring!

That was when I remembered these little jewels, and bippety boppety boo, today's shot ended up featuring my living-room. Even the bad lighting ended up being a good thing - because that's why I decided to get down on the floor to steady my camera. Necessity really is the mother of invention haha ;)

/MrsHjort

Solitude - doing the grunge

Originally, this picture had a lot more color. But the old wicket really didn't fit in with the happy colors. It's not often that I find subjects like this interesting, but this... this worn and weathered gate, in the middle of nowhere, with no fence to justify its position, really caught my eye. A piece of the past, persisting in spite of the ware and tare. With no purpose what so ever anymore, but to remind us of its long since past glory days. It seems I'm waxing nostalgic haha. Maybe because we're currently in the process of making new stuff look old for the wine cellar we're building here at home.

So, as I said, the grungy feel of this photo really didn't fit the wonderful lime green grass. And, so, I've done something so unusual (at least when it comes to me) as desaturating and darkening a colorful photo. The gloom fits it much better though, and as a matter of fact, it even made Mr go "Oooooh, that's a nice looking photo, did you shoot it?". Awww! Dear Mr! He's just too sweet sometimes ;)

/MrsHjort

Crooked Lines

When you think about it, you really don't have to travel far to get an interesting picture. I rarely shoot anything in my home, but one day I realized, right then and there, that the lines from this view - at the top of my attic stair case - are actually quite interesting.

Maybe I should challenge myself to do this kind of thing more often - to shoot something interesting at home. It's so easy to become blind to what is this close at hand - in search for exotic subjects - but what's close by can be just as intriguing. Even if it is just the a shot of a worn down stair case.

If you have sharp eyes, you'll notice that there are numbers over the door; "1935 18/12". That's the date the house was finally "christened", though a traditional Swedish attic party. The feast is held after the roof is finished, and the house can be lived in for the first time. I really love that you can still find little details like that in our home. A lot has been torn out, renovated and replaced, but some small details will continue to be persevered, and cherished.

/MrsHjort