First baby post

Although I am not sure I have a static number of readers, it is time to announce that me and Mattias (Pico & Romeo, of course, as cat-brothers) are expecting the arrival of a baby girl.
Hence, it is time to "show off" some of the things we got and bought (not all of them) for her.

This is belonging to "my collection", in the sense that I took with me all my old clothes.
They are quite neutral in color (back then there was no ecography) and they are 95% of them all hand made. This is in wool! Not sure what size it is, though!

We bought these items above when we were in Italy for Christmas. SALES!

These are probably the most common items some baby can have, since they are instead from H&M. Mattias especially liked the jeans salopette and I got crazy about the amount of Barbapapa' items.

Still on the Barbapapa' theme we bought those lovely small micro socks! And Pico & Romeo will not be offended thanks to Alessio & Elena who instead gave the cat micro socks to Isabella for Christmas.

This is the first official toy she got! We must thanks Luisa & Paolo (and Fede) for this. Let's see if it will be a shared toy among kids and cats ;-)

My mother made another wonderful creation, which is this beautiful blanket with handmade angels allover it. We really liked it!

As one might notice the colors are tendentially pinkish and if not, they are really soft and creamy. There are few items that have strong colors. We really liked what the shops in Italy sell (and yes, both of us) and we were concerned if we would find something we would like here in Sweden. Luckily, it seems H&M is a good salvation point (actually, we found some decent baby clothes also at Lutz) but when we went into Polarn o Pyret (or whatever its name is - one really common brand for kids clothes here in Sweden) we were horrified (also by the prices).
Let's say that we are not in favor of gender neutral clothes ;-)

Useful for swimming (or better, before and after)

When I was in primary school I was not that passionated in swimming. I remember that I learned to swim one year and the year after I had totally forgotten how to do it.
For different reasons, I ended up at the end of my primary school years going to some swimming classes and I started to enjoy it very much. I went in that same swimming pool for about 5-6 years and then I stopped because I really didn't have the time.
I tried to go back to do it regularly at several point in time after I turned out 20 and when I came to Sweden it became even harder doing it, not only for the time (and the fact that drying properly my hair takes about 10 minutes) but also because I found the swimming pools quite different from the ones I was used to.
Namely, no mandatory usage of slippers (I was observed horrified women going around barefoot and enter the toilets - ewww), no mandatory usage of swim cap (...) and of course, the uninhibited behavior of the people around me was making me quite shock (me that was hardly removing the swimsuit to take the shower...).

Nevertheless, last year I tried to be regular in my swimming attempts and I quite managed to do so, even though I was trying to have my feet or on a towel or on my slippers most of the time.
Luckily, my similarly swim-passionated niece showed me a "trick". I followed her (and my nephew) to swim when I was in Rome visiting them and she and her friends were all equipped with an object I had never seen before (for sure not here in Sweden). It looked something like this one below.

Therefore I asked my sister in law to provide me such object for Christmas and I got it (it is of course the one above!)
Really useful! It is basically like a footboard, to be used when changing, drying the hairs, and so on. It is light and can be folded so it doesn't take too much space.
Finally, my "feet" problems got solved :-)
I know she bought it at some sport shop in Italy, but I have never seen it here. I wonder if I will ever do ;-)

Pico can be useful

It turned out that Pico is an extremely popular subject for all sort of things. Even for a penholder!

Our Pico has  yellow eyes and Romeo got offended there is no such abundance of portraits for him.
This was one of the Christmas presents from Mattias and now is in our "studio" storing pens and some other small things.
It is hand painted and Mattias bought it in some fair-trade shop here in Lund.
Meow!

A slow start of the year

It might seem that I have no big intention to update this blog, now that the initial "interest" has faded away, but this is not the case ;-)
Although I don't know who is really reading this, the main problem is that time has been quite an issue.
Coming back to work after holidays can always be quite traumatic (and also going home after being away), since there is always a lot to do!

But even if we are not anymore at the very beginning of the year, we got a present (a Christmas one) that it is really a beautiful wish for this year (and our future in general).

A wish for everyone as well :-)

The first post of 2011

First of all,

Happy New Year!!

Time is flying and another here has already passed. Half a year since I started this blog and I wonder who is really reading it ;-)
Right now, we are enjoying some relax in my hometown, disconnecting a bit from the everyday life. Unfortunately, we have managed to get all sort of bacterias, viruses and whatever, especially during these days, so our plans have changed pretty much and we have just stayed home hoping that things would get better (which they have partially done).

Anyway, Christmas has been generous and I got some small nice things.
Among which I got a beautiful necklace from Kalevala, which is a finnish company that produces handmade jewelry.

My necklace is called Twinflower (which is the common name for Linnea Borealis, the flower symbol of Smaland, one of the Swedish regions. It is in silver and light pink sweet water pearls and can be locked in several ways, becoming more than one simple necklace.