Shades of green

There are so many shades of green among the trees at the moment, each tree seems to have its own shade, the oak, the birch, the beech, the sycamore and the apple trees with its pink flowers and the lilacs with purple or white flowers, as well as the pine. Here is the view from my balcony:

And the apple tree in bloom:

The beech outside my bedroom window is hiding the sea from view, but I know it’s there, just a short walk away:

New city, new apartment, new job

It’s almost two months since I moved to Karlskrona and began my new work at a health care centre here. It’s been a hectic time, with lots of new things to learn.

Dani

It's a week now since I had to put my cat Dani to sleep. He had been eating poorly for some days and looked a bit unwell, so I called the vet and got a time the same afternoon. Already when the vet assistant put him on the scales I got a bad feeling, as he had lost 600 grams in weight in three weeks since the last visit to the vet, and when the vet checked him she found that he had lumps in his belly. An ultrasound showed that there were tumours among the intestines, and I had to make the decision to put him to sleep. It was hard, but I think it was the best for him, as he didn't want to eat and hardly drink anything. The vet and the assistants at the veterinary were great, I could sit with Dani as long as I wanted, and afterwards he was to be cremated and the ashes buried at a pet cemetery.

I will miss you Dani!

Dani (Kattkompaniets Mercury) January 13, 2003 - October 15, 2013

Perhaps a new job in 2014

There is still three months left of 2013, but I have already begun to plan for 2014, as I hope that I will be in a new city and have a new job when 2014 arrives. Yesterday I sent applications for three different jobs as a medical secretary in Karlskrona in the south of Sweden, by the Baltic Sea. I've lived "landlocked" for thirteen years now and I've been missing the nearness of the sea more and more lately, as I've lived most of my life near the sea or a big lake, and I lived eleven years on the island of Gotland, where the hospital I worked at was situated next to the beach, and I could see out over the water every day at work, and the sunsets during the winter months were often very impressive with lots of colours and the ever-changing sea. Now I hope that it won't be too long before I live in a city by the sea, and can watch the sun go down (or up) over the water.

I've already begun to go through my stuff, I won't say that I'm packing, it's far too early for that, but going through all the things that I have accumulated during the years, so it's high time to get organised and to throw away or give away things that I don't need or are too old/well-used/saved "in case I might need them. I know that I'm a bit of a hoarder, not only when it comes to stitching stuff, but also to stationery, as I went through the items I have kept in my writing bureau and filled three boxes (about 25 x 35 x 30cm big) with paper, envelopes and cards. I have had several snail-mail pen pals during the years, but have unfortunately lost contact with most of them, and now it's usually only an exchange of Christmas cards, so all those lovely writing papers I have collected have been forgotten in the bureau. Maybe it's also time to start looking for new snail-mail pals so that my collection of stationery doesn't just collect dust.

I've also done a bit of stitching on the muguet heart, page 3 (the bottom part) is all done and I have only a handful of stitches left on page 2, so it's soon time to begin stitching the flower part of the heart. I also picked up my knitting needles, I found some fuzzy yarn for a scarf and as I'm knitting with size 8 needles, it won't take long to get the scarf done, perfect for the colder months ahead.

A visit to the vet

Had to take my oldest cat to the veterinarian today, as I had noticed that he had began climbing up instead of jumping when he wanted to get up somewhere, and he has also been more irritated lately with the two female cats I have. He haven't seem to be in pain but I wanted to have him checked, as he's the one of my cats that have had most problems health-wise, it's been either accidents or illness. He has had his fair share of visits to the vet, thankfully he's always been a very good patient, even when he doesn't like what's been done, he's never tried to bite or claw anyone.

He had a bad ear infection in December/January and had to have first ear drops and then two rounds of antibiotic tablets before his ears were fine again. Unfortunately he has suffered a permanent loss of hearing after the infection, he had a rupture of the eardrum on one side due to the infection, but he's lost hearing on both ears, and doesn't react on any sound.

He will be eleven years old in January, so he's not young anymore, and the vet found that he seems to be suffering from arthritis (or some other joint pain) in his hips. He was prescribed a medicine that's anti-inflammatory as well as pain reliever, and we will see if it will help him, and hopefully his temper with the other two will improve.

Stitching-wise I've been working on the muguet heart, I had to do some frogging after I had stitched about one third of the stitching on the bottom part of the heart, which is on a separate page, as I discovered that the centre markings on the top and bottom page were not correct, they were five or six stitches out of sync. Thankfully there was only 21 rows of stitching on the separate page, so it wasn't that much to frog, but still, it's always irritating to have to undo what you have done, and this time it wasn't entirely my fault, there was a fault in the pattern.

The weather forecast for tonight says that the temperature could drop below zero Centigrade, and the cold is coming in from Russia. The weather has changed quickly this September, during the two first weeks the temperature was still summer warm during the days, and now it will be almost five degrees colder than normally during this time of the year. Hopefully the turn to colder weather will only be temporary, and that October will be mild and sunny.

Soup Monday ... and some frogging

Autumn is officially here, the Autumn Equinox was yesterday, and although we have had a sunny day today it's not very warm, so I decided it was time to make some soup for dinner to warm me up. As I like corn and knew that I have several cans in the pantry I went looking for a new recipe and found Chunky Corn Chowder on Allrecipes.com, with potatoes, carrots and corn. The recipe is vegan and made with soy milk, but I'm a vegetarian so I used ordinary milk instead. The soup was easy to make and didn't take that long to make and it tasted delicious, and I have saved the recipe and will make it again, perfect for chilly days.

I've been stitching on the muguet heart and have almost finished the right-hand part of the heart, and began stitching the bottom part that's on a separate page. There were markings for the centre on the pages and I assumed that the markings were correct, but when I had reached to the top of the bottom part I discovered that the markings had been out of sync by five or six stitches! I had to frog everything I had stitched when it came to the bottom part, maybe an hours worth of stitching :-( I'm just glad that it wasn't more.

Perfumes and more stitching stuff

I love perfumes (even if I'm not allowed to wear any at work), and I like to try on new ones. I'm a member of Fragrantica.com, and it's possible to make different searches there, for example for a specific note. I made a search for lavender and found several perfumes, but most of them not available here in Sweden. While looking I found some for me new fragrance companies, and ordered a few samples from Fragrances of Ireland and Molinard, and have received them now.

I haven't had time to try on all of the perfumes, but I love the Innisfree perfume from Fragrances of Ireland, there is lavender in it, and sandalwood and cedarwood in the base note, and I will buy it.

In the Molinard box there are five flower scents, lavender, rose, jasmine, violet and lily of the valley, and I also ordered an orange blossom soap.

As for stitching, I got more stash, this time from Sew and So in the U.K. I ordered a Vervaco kit, Majesty II, I've been wanting to stitch it for a long time and finally decided to buy it. I also bought a bookmark (with a cat of course), new scissors and a rotating Easy Clip frame (not in the photo).

I've continued to stitch on the Coeur de muguet, it's coming along fine, but I'm not sure I will have time to finish it before September 30, the day my mother was born. I have also found an old UFO, Who's watching whom? from Dimensions, and began stitching on it again. As you can see I have one of the models here at home ;-)