sunday

goals : bored

there are so many things you want in life.

big things like a happy family. small things like a nice dinner.

we put up goals for ourselves. and look forward to the day when this goal will be fulfilled or that goal will expand into a bigger goal.

sooner or later we either achieve the goal or realize that we'll never achieve it (which will hopefully be due to the fact that it wasn't a great goal to begin with).

and while you're in the process of reaching for your goal you never really stop to think what you'll do once you get there. hopefully the goal will have gotten you a step closer to the biggest goal in life or at least made the way there more fun or more comfortable.

and then you start all over again. because we don't like living without goals. cause whats the point if we don't have a goal? the point is the goal, right?

2 yr ago:

one goal was to finish college. me and freddy had been dating for about two months. so another goal was to pursue our relationship and figure out the next step. i was pumped about church and was setting up goals in how i could build ministry (wherever that ministry would be).

1 yr ago:

my goals from the previous year were reached. I had graduated college, gotten engaged and was heavily involved in building the youth ministry in my church back home.

my goals were 1. to get married 2. to get into music school 3. to find somewhere to live in sthlm 4. for freddy to learn swedish and find a job

today:

all the goals from the previous year are reached.

we are married. we live in sthlm. I'm in music school. freddy knows swedish and has a full-time job.

so what now?

i realize that this much stuff don't normally happen within such a short time. So maybe the goal process could slow down a bit? or stretch out and become more longterm goals?

but to be honest i feel kind of bored. immensely thankful and grateful. but a bit bored.

coffe hijacked

life is interesting. that's what keeps it interesting.

for some reason i always wake up at 4 am when i have nightmares. 4.00am, every time.

so as i was being chased by the leader of a gang high up on some electrical wires in central stockholm it came as no surprise when i startled awake and looked at my phone. 4 am on the dot.

when staring at the feeling for a few minutes i tried to shrug off the scary feelings awaken by my dream. i tried to imagine how stupid all of this would feel in a few hours in broad daylight. but it never works. you still feel scared to fall back asleep. since you always wake up just as something was gonna happen (in my case just as the leader was closing in on me) your scared of the dream jumping right back in as soon as you fall asleep.

distraction usually works, so i put on some gilmore girls. the flickering from the tv woke up my not-so-eager-for-it-to-be-morning husband.

after two episodes i fell back asleep for an hour before the nice tone of fleet foxes let me know it was time for freddy to get up for work.

I've been off today, doing laundry and other chores including making lunch and bringing it to freddy. after eating gnocchi's by the water we decided to make a short stop at our favorite café Kura. we met a securitas car as we were pulling up and freddy asked me if they issue parking tickets. i said NO.

after ordering coffee the car comes around again. turns out they do. freddy got out in time and moved the car, i ran out with a take-away cup and off he went to finish his route.

and here i am, still at the café with a picture of michael jackson's dead body in front of me (in the newspaper).

so what to make out of the rest of this day?

music school.

monday was my first day at the royal music college of stockholm. the upper secondary school teaching program.
dont really know why they call it royal. i guess you can call things royal if they are in the capital? and it sounds fancier...
registration was at 9am. papers, mugshot, id card etc.
when i was done i went to sit down in the cafeteria. i just picked a random table. then it turns out i ended up in the brass section of the classical music program. i guess the odd looking instrument cases should have tipped me off.. they were kind of different. kept talking about their gigs and accomplishments. another guy sat down (also brass) and asked me what i played, a girl next to me leaned over and said: "aw, she's in the teachingprogram".
i was to polite to leave, i sat there and messed with my phone.
we were divided into three big groups (across all the institutions: jazz, classical, folkmusic, teaching, composition, church musician) and had three workshops mon-tues: singing, moving/rhythm, playing. Our first one was after lunch: playing. we were like a big ensemble with lots of instruments playing grooves and stuff.

tuesday we had the other two workshops. i show up in a dress and pantyhose. i had blindly forgotten that we had moving/rhythm, and even if i had remembered, i dont think i would have brought a change of clothes anyway. 3hrs of african dancing with live drums. the guy was quite a weirdo, talked about balls of energy.
he did say something quite interesting. he said that you can never play music wrong, ever. its an expression. if you hurt your hand you will scream as an expression of pain. no one can tell you that you screamed wrong, or that you screamed right since it was an expression of your pain. he meant that it was the same with music.
the next workshop was singing. this was the best one. it wasnt just about singing but also about stage presence. we did lots of great exercises and learned som cool songarrangements.

today we had lots of information about stuff. i got to put a fire out during the fire hazard training. tonight there was a concert put together with everything we learned during the workshops. to be quite honest i bailed. i just didnt really wanna stay.
me and freddy made food and are now watching the movie The Prestige. a great movie we've both seen before.

i just ordered some stuff from amazon uk. cs lewis books, some coldplay and mumford vinyls, gilmore girls dvds. all for only around 1000:-.

i cant wait for school to actually start, this is just kind of an intro week so its hard to tell what its gonna be like.

*

freddy's birthday.

good evening everyone.
the morning started with hot chocolate for the birthday boy/man.
i actually already gave him his gift at 12.01 last night, but it turned out he didnt remember anything i said in the morning. so he was kind of waiting for me to announce his gift and i already thought he knew. anyway: Brad Paisley tickets!

the wonderful birthday barbecue just finished. lots of amazing people came and brought life and love to our home. we have a big barbecue area in the courtyard and it was soon filled with laughter and the smell of barbecue. so many of our awesome new hillsong stockholm friends came. they are honestly such amazing people, all of them.
(the not so amazing part was the weird neighbors with weird opinions about everything)
after we brought the cake out, and sung the birthday song, we played a round of apples to apples.
now freddy is talking to his family, wearing his new socks that bossan gave him.

tomorrow im working at the toystore again, third shift this week. it's a lot of fun!

today i finished all of our thank you cards from the wedding. ive sowed the word tack (thank you) on each of them with a needle and a thread. that combined with doing laundry and watching gilmore girls took up most of my day. who says you cant to three things at the same time?

*

a day in the city.

i woke up this morning to the sound of freddy's coughing. it's been a very efficient alarmaclock the past week. around 7 o'clock the first cough begins and then it keeps going 'til he leaves for work around 8.45. after that i get a nice 30 min soundless sleep and then im ready to go.

i was meeting sara at our favourite café in the city. i left early though since i needed to switch my phone plan. (i got stuck with one of those stupid phone salesmen who sold me a phoneplan i didnt want). afterwards i continued my journey towards my most beloved café.
sara had taken upon herself to ride the bike from her house to the city (about 30 min away), so naturally she was late. i do admire her briskness.
we had the best coffee and talked about life and all that and then proceeded to "do the city".
i started by trying to exchange a perfume i got for graduation 5 yrs ago. i was unsuccessful: what a surprise. apparently it had been discontinued.. a few yrs ago.

we went around in some stores and i finally found a bikini. ive been looking for one for ages (a few months). bikinis are always so hard to find. you need to like the fabric, the model, it needs to really fit you, be of great quality since it gets wet so much, and it needs to stay up. and then there's the usual, they need to have your colour, your size and it cant be too pricey.
anyway: i ended up with this one from weekdays.
towards the end of our stroll we went to this old map store. the owner was fairly to his years and very chatty. he showed me a newspaper from 1930 and proudly pointed out his father on the front page. his father was a journalist.
i asked to see his maps of america and he went to get a big folder.
in there i found a map of manhattan from 1614! i dont think his print was that old (prob like 1800's he said) but it was really cool. im definitely saving up to get it, it was 400 crowns.
i found a good map of united states that i liked and since he didnt have a cardmachine i had to walk to an ATM. when i came back the owner was going through some letters. he told me that the letters were from Picasso (yes, THE Picasso) to his dad. all originals. the letters were about a woman Picasso had met. anyway, i got the map and headed homeward.

yesterday i was at a concert at gröna lund (an amusement park in the city). sven-bertil taube and guests were playing. he is a very famous swedish songwriter and performer and the son of a perhaps even more famous swedish songwriter and performer: evert taube.
i bought the "green card" for 189 crowns, which means free entrance all summer long to the amusement park and all concerts. a bargain.
we played the m&m lottery, ruben and ida won the big prize.

what is stockholm like?

i know you are all dying to know, right?

haha.

im currently at a mcdonalds snagging some internet to do some errands. we still havent gotten internet, hence the absence.
i feel like there has been nothing but blessings since we got here.
this weekend mom came up and helped to get the apartment to look it's best. we clothed the kitchen shelves in paper and put stickers on the kitchen tiles. she got us some flowers (my first live plants) and added to the wardrobe some nice vintage clothing.
it was great having her here. we went to Kulturhuset (the house of culture) and saw this wicked exhibition of this swedish author/artist/designer called Stig Claesson. I will treat you to something cool in a picture. we had lunch and coffee and just walked around.
we spent a long time browsing through vintage clothes in this big store called Beyond Retro. this is also the store where i got my wedding dress!



freddy has got a job at DHL now. so he is the hot packagedelivery boy that requires your signature. i am working a trial shift at BR Leksaker tomo. it's a big toystore in the middle of stockholm and im really excited.

we've been doing church since we got here. freddy on electric guitar and me training people on lights. last sunday night i did the lights myself and it was a lot of fun. forgotten how much i miss it. a part of me wished i was back in sydney with the rigg, stage and people there. dont get me wrong, stockholm is amazing. but sydney was the first place where the magic happened. where i started loving lights.

ok, the battery on my computer is about to run out.
but we are doing great here. life is moving to a new season and we are embracing it in all ways.