We made gingerbread cookies. Store-bought ones can’t compete, and I realize I need to copy Eric’s recipe because otherwise next Christmas in this household will be a sad affair.

Every year we tell ourselves that we will only bring out the most important cutters and that there is no need to dirty all of them. Our priorities overlap but only partially, and we end up using at least two thirds of all the cutters anyway. I like the traditional shapes, Ingrid wants the ones that are good for decorating, Adrian prefers the small ones that are best at using up the most dough. Eric is happy to just bake whatever we cut.

The dough gets smaller and smaller with each round, but there will be no wastage!

Sortera included consultants in their Christmas party this year. With very short notice, but hey, free party, can’t complain.

I hadn’t realized just how big the company was. There were about 250 people at the Christmas party, out of about 350 employees. In Stockholm only, not even counting Göteborg, Malmö or Örebro! I only see the office staff of Sortera Recycling and some of Sortera Group, so it’s easy to forget about the other businesses. And while I am very aware that all the drivers and facility staff are out there doing the real work, so to say, I lose sight of just how many they are.

Sortera’s customers are mostly in the construction industry, so they follow construction industry hours. Many in the staff start their working day at 7 and hence finish work at 16, so that’s when the pre-pre-mingle at the office started. Then we moved on to the pre-dinner mingle at Färgfabriken at 18. By 21 I had been mingling and socializing for five full hours and was feeling all peopled out, and called it a day.

One of the major things on Ingrid’s wish list for her birthday was to get her ears pierced. Today we made it happen.

We did some research online and opted for an actual piercing studio, rather than the quick and cheap piercing gun solution. Piercing Monroe did an excellent job, both before and during our visit. Ingrid is pain-sensitive and not at all fond of needles (and who is, really?) but they were the perfect combination of kind and professional and made everything go very smoothly. Very positive experience.

The lovely little studs are hammered gold, styled to look like they’re covered with tiny crystals.

The weather was bleh, my mood was meh. I had no energy and I didn’t want to do anything. So I forced myself to exercise.

I have learned by now that when I least feel like working out – not because I’m physically tired but when I just *don’t want to* – is when I most need to, and will get the most benefit from it. And that was the case today, too. In the afternoon I felt a lot more lively.

FitnessBlender videos, which I was recommended four years ago, are still just the right fit. Sometimes an old favourite works best to motivate me; other times I pick something new because everything else feels boring. Either way, I feel renewed afterwards.

Next Thursday will be the last of this season’s embroidery club sessions. We agreed to swap Artist Trading Cards, so I’m making one – my first ever. I’ve still got a bunch of black, white and red design ideas I haven’t realized, so this will be something on that theme.

And a circle. I like circles.

I should have included a matchbox for scale. It measures just 6 x 9.5 cm. A lot smaller than the A5 sketchbook above.

Three concerts in three days is a bit much. It wasn’t intentional, but the two concert series happened to end up on the same weekend. Sara Parkman’s concert came up much later, and I couldn’t just pass it by.

The Sunday afternoon chamber music series is usually nice and cosy. Some pieces are definitely more interesting than others, but if nothing else, it’s a moment of peace. Today’s concert concluded with 45 minutes of a piano quintet by Brahms.

For most instruments, it’s different players each time. The philharmonic orchestra obviously has numerous violinists and so on. But the pianist is often the same – Stefan Lindgren. By now I recognize not only him, but also his loyal page turner, who’s often there with him. The others all manage their own sheet music, physically or digitally, but a pianist’s feet are, obviously, busy with pedals already.

Still at it with the sunflowers. Only on weekends, because that’s when there’s daylight. The soft light of a cloudy November morning has turned out to be pretty perfect, actually.

All the leaves and stems and petal edges and random splodges of red are done. I’m at the point where all I have left is a large amount of all-brownish-yellow pieces, and a roughly equal amount of all-whitish-blue pieces.

Sara Parkman in concert in Katarina church. The concert was titled Kura skymning.

“Kura skymning” means “huddle [in the] twilight”. I learned that it’s an old Nordic tradition, of taking a moment to sit together in the peace and quiet of twilight, without/before lighting any lamps.

The concert didn’t quite ask the audience to do that, but its lovely candlelit atmosphere came close. The music was beautiful, of course. The acoustics of a church suit her music, both voice and violin, very well. And she is just such a nice, kind, generous person.

She’s now on my list of “buy a ticket whenever she’s nearby, regardless of what she’ll play” list.

There’s still snow and ice outside, and my comfy barefoot shoes are slippery, so I put on my winter boots.

I hadn’t even walked ten minutes before my feet were cramping. Narrow toe box, stiff sole… and the fact I was struggling for grip on the ice didn’t help.

Do I really have to buy barefoot winter boots as well? Are my feet now completely spoiled for conventional footwear? I got by last season somehow; maybe I can persevere.

I have an extra concert series this year, very much as an experiment – “Ny fredag”, Fridays with new music. I am cautiously intrigued. One of the four concerts in the series promised didgeridoos. Today’s concert was not that one, but KammarensembleN playing “Schnee (10 canons)” by Hans Abrahamsen.

It was… interesting. I can’t honestly say that I liked it, and I will not be listening to it at home, or seeking out more concerts of this composer. But it never felt boring while I was listening.

The musicians got sounds out of their instruments that I never would have imagined. The first part starts with the violins playing a note so high that it sounds like just the bow against the string, a soft whisper that was probably inaudible past the very frontmost rows of seats. Later, the cello makes long wailing sounds, and the piccolo flute likewise sounds barely like music.

The percussionist’s main instruments were two sheets of paper, one in each hand, that he rhythmically pushed around on a flat table, with great focus. While the violinists were preparing by tuning their instruments, he prepared by donning gloves with rubberized fingertips. He had two sets of paper, even, and I suspect the other pair may have been sandpaper, because during the latter part of the piece, his movements were sending up little puffs of dust.

The gong behind the percussionist was hit exactly once.

Overall I like my music more melodious and less dissonant. Some modern classical music is! Like Ylva Skog’s, or Philip Glass or Steve Reich. But many composers really want to be pushing the envelope, and if they can’t find any other direction to push, they push away from melody.