Monroe Mondays

Tea Stones

What on earth is that, you ask? It is one of my clever dad's inventions and is brilliant, so now I pass the idea on to all you fellow tea drinkers. My dad was tired of waiting for the tea to cool down, so he collected some oblong stones at the beach, washed them in the dishwasher and then he put a stone into his mug, poured tea over it, waited a short while, took up the stone and his tea was ready to drink. Simple and brilliant.

Monroe Mondays

I'm a Systematist

I suffer from order lunacy, I admit it, I don't thrive in mess. I have been tidying up as long as I remember and I love to systematize everything. My books are organized alphabetically, my music is ordered in genres, I have an Excel sheet with all my movies (and ought to make one alike for my music), my shoes, stockings, lipsticks and nail polishes are organized in colours. The last in my lovely new drawer.

And to enhance the nail polish system further, I have bought nail palettes from transdesign.com. I started with three palettes (x24 colours), they were quickly used, so now I have just bought three more palettes and look forward to having fun painting all my newly bought colours on the test nails to get super-system in my collection.
Here you see all my different nail polish colours so far:
From top left are all the glitter polishes, in the middle are the black/grey/white polishes, and at the right are the effect polishes, that is crack polishes, magnetical polishes and a single glow-in-the-dark polish. More magnetical polishes are on the way. ;)

Below are a palette with red an purple colours, then all the pinks and at the right are the blue and green tones.

It is both practical and very inspiring to sit and look through all the palettes, so I sincerely recommend it.

Monroe Mondays

Winter Decoration

I love to decorate for Christmas, in fact I call it to go Christmas Crazy. But a few days after Christmas I am as eager to pack it all away as I was to put it all up. Then it is welcome back to simplicity. BUT! I always think it is so empty, dark and dull after Christmas, so I have invented the Winter decorations! I have gathered some ice and snowflake related things. I love snowflakes and think they are one of mother nature’s most beautiful wonders, so why not decorate with them. I have snowflakes in most of my living room windows:

A snowflake candleholder on our TV shelf:

Lumps of ice on the living room table:

Snowmen in the window:

Troll hazel sprigs with crystals to catch the light:

And a huge lantern in the bay:

It is all about light. When the Christmas tree is gone it all becomes so dark, and the it is nice to add some extra light and cosiness, because Spring is SO far away. Meanwhile I will also decorate myself with snowflakes, here are my latest treasures from Etsy:

Monroe Mondays

Goodbye to a Bad Year!

Normally, I keep the tone here on my blog light and happy, and I never complain or write about my problems. And since I don't have New Years Resolutions (except that I must not buy more nail polishes, books, lip balms, shoes ...!) and I don't evaluate the year either. But today I will dedicate this post to a well-meant GOODBYE to a bad year!

As some of you might remember I went through a big operation in the middle of October 2010, and I felt really bad 2½ months after. At the beginning of January 2011 I finally thought that now I felt better. It didn't hurt badly and I did not have nausea or vomited any longer. The day after I feel on our main stairs and broke my leg!

I waited, with many other fellow-sufferers with broken bodyparts, five hours at the casualty ward to be x-rayed and find out my ankle was quite crushed and my radius was broken. I had to meet the next morning to get an operation. I was absolutely NOT ready for this so soon after my last operation. I waited fasting a day to get the message that I should not go through operation, that the best treatment was no treatment. Then I put a knife to the throat of the surgeon and said that he should guarantee me that I would be able to walk in high heels again and that I was not just spared since there were so many broken arms and legs. He promised me I would.

Now, a year after, I walk in medium high heels, that is what most would call high heels, they are about 2½-3", and I'm still working on the higher heels. But it would never have been so without my fantastic physiotherapist. Without his brilliant treatments I would still be limping. You don't get anything from the hospital, only a poor little folder with exercises I could have figured out myself.

And I also went down with serious stress twice during Spring and early Summer. So serious down that I found myself lying among our boxes in the basement crying, shaking and even couldn't say my own name. Fortunately, I have a fantastic boss, who spend her Easter thinking about what to do to make me feel better and thereafter took good care of me. We are all VERY fond of her.

But good things have also happened: I have hosted two nail nights with great success, one in Spring and one in Autumn. Now all my female colleagues are Nail Nerds, even the most natural type has started a small collection of nail stuff.

Son has got an apprenticeship as a landscape gardener, and he is very happy! He is not literary, but unfortunately he does not have technical talent like his dad and granddad either. But apparently he is a very skilled gardener. I do hope that it continues the next four years.

And we have bought a holiday to Florida in February, with our best friend, Jesper, and his sweet family. All my life I have wanted to go to the US and now the holiday is finally paid, but it is still too unreal for me.

Before going to Floriday, I also have to go to Dubai with my company - it's a tough job but somebody has to do it! :)

Happy New Year to you all. I have decided that 2012 will be a fantastic year, I hope your year will be so too.

Monroe Mondays

Happy New Year to you all.