Hi, I’m Helen. Nice to meet you.

I am…

  • A woman in my thirties forties.
  • Married to Eric.
  • A mother of two kids, Ingrid and Adrian.
  • Estonian by birth, Swedish in everyday life, and multiculturally rootless by inclination.
  • A software developer, currently working as a consultant tretton37.

I like to read and to write, to code and to cook and to take photos, to cycle and to dance. I like the colour orange. I am mostly vegetarian.

I grew up in then-Soviet Estonia, moved to Sweden when I was 15, moved again to London when I started working after university, and finally moved back and settled for the long term in a suburb of Stockholm, Sweden, when Ingrid was a year and a half.

I write this blog for two audiences: myself, and friends and family. For friends and family, especially the faraway ones, I hope it helps us keep in touch. For my own sake, I write so as to get things out of my head and onto “paper”. I also write to remember things: the blog helps me recall life’s good moments. You can read more about why I blog.

I usually write about the things that are topmost in my mind. When I started, this meant book reviews, posts about concerts and dance performances, etc. After that, I posted a lot about parenting, about our house and garden, and everyday life with the kids. Now the kids are more grown and I’m finding new themes, and concert reviews are back. I don’t usually write about my work – this is a personal blog, not a technical one.