I was going to take a self-portrait with my new haircut (which I got today) but it’s dark and the light just doesn’t work so I gave up. Here is the hair, without the rest of me.

If I could freeze my hair in time and have it never grow, never change, I’d be quite happy. Getting a haircut can feel nice and all, but it feels like such a waste of time. So I usually put it off as long as possible. But my hair is thin and flat these days, and doesn’t look good if I let it grow. And what’s worse – when it grows past a certain point it starts touching the back of my neck, and that is really itchy. So I have to cut it.

Adrian is sick, feverish and weak and tired and miserable, so I stayed home with him all day. Basically spent the day in the sofa with my laptop, working while keeping him company. Ideally he wanted to use me as a pillow all day but that was a bit too much for me, so he just lay really close. Now my brain feels sluggish and mushy because of the monotony and lack of stimulation, and my back is tired for the same reasons.

Staying at home all day can be very nice, but not staying in a single corner of a sofa all day.

I was extra pleased to note an ad in this morning’s newspaper for a promising organ concert, given my disappointment on Thursday. BachiStan is a project/grouping/something that will play all of Bach’s works for organ during 2020, with concerts taking place every other weekend, starting today. Were I retired and free, perhaps I would try to attend all of them. I’ll be happy even if this is the only one I hear, but I really hope that it won’t be.

On the programme: a prelude, two duets, and a number of chorals.

I enjoyed every moment of this concert. It was so much more to my taste than Thursday’s. Firstly, it was Bach and not Reger. Despite its name, baroque music is restrained and disciplined and almost “easy listening” compared to Reger. Secondly, it was played on relatively modest-sized church organs instead of what I’m beginning to think of as the grandiose monstrosity at Konserthuset.

The German Church has two organs, and both were used today. I arrived relatively late but since I was alone I found a great seat right in the middle. If I sat facing forward, the Juno organ was straight behind me. If I turned to the right, the Düben organ was straight in front of me. So I got perfect sound from both.

There was a speech, not quite a sermon, towards the end of the concert, about why we are here. Why are we listening to this music? Why did Bach write this music? In this telling, it all goes back to Luther and his belief that music brings us closer to God.

And I realized in a flash of insight – I can’t believe I haven’t realized this before! – that my most perfect music listening experiences are those that turn into meditations. The times when I am subsumed by the music and all other senses and thoughts disappear. I am aware of each note as happens, it is almost as if it was happening within me. This takes music of a very different kind than what’s usually labelled as “meditation music” – relaxing, unassuming and bland music that sort of just tinkles along in the background. Meditating to music, not meditating while listening to music.

This second photo is of the collections chest at the German Church. I went looking for it after the concert, because I thought this experience deserved at least the price of a concert ticket. Stuffing my banknote down this ancient opening was a bonus experience.

No major life changes, really. Pretty much just keeping going in the same direction as before.

Travels:

• Skiing in Kläppen (day 1, day 2, day 3, day 5, day 6, day 7)
• Ski tour in Norway (day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, day 6)
• Hiking on Mallorca in a heat wave (day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, day 6)
• Estonia
• Hiking in Vålådalen (day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4)
• London (day 1, day 2, day 3)

Work:

• Knowabunga in Prague
• Held a talk (and then held it again twice more)

Other memorable events:

• Redid the kitchen (highlights: dreams, demolition, more demolition, cabinets, done)
• Our first scout camp as a family
• Hamilton, the musical (post 1, post 2)

I’m usually tired and stressed during autumns, and this one was worse than most. A lot of stress at work, no time to recharge. December was no better. Towards the end of the two-week holiday over Christmas and New Year, for a while I felt like a normal human being. Now after two weeks at work I’m starting to slip back.

The first skirt turned out nice so I started on another one. This one will be bolder, in bright red and with embroidery on the front. Same stretchy wool fabric as the first one.

What to embroider, though? That was the difficult question.

Definitely nothing corny like hearts or butterflies or flowers. Vines or leaves, like ivy maybe? No, I have a green skirt that I also want to pimp up, and leaves and vines would look better in green than in red.

An animal of some kind, like the lizard towel I made for my brother? There are lots of cool, clever animals – dragons and cats and ravens and octopuses and elephants. The problem with putting an animal in such a prominent position, though, is that it becomes a statement. (Does in my head, at least.) Cats, for example, are nice – but I don’t care so much about them that I would want my only bold skirt to be a cat skirt. And they’re all a bit cliché as well, somehow, to be personal. Especially since I cannot draw well enough to draw them from scratch. I’d have to google for a picture to start from, and then it would be like wearing clip art on my skirt.

Anything even vaguely symbolic has the same problem. All of it has been appropriated by fashion designers, so it wouldn’t feel mine. I love Celtic knotwork designs, for example, and doodled some of my own many years ago. But now everybody and their dog has a knotwork tattoo.

Something completely abstract, then? Yes.

Circles. Circles are common in both traditional Estonian and Swedish embroidery, which feels fitting. Less common than flowers, but common enough that I’ll be able to find some inspiration. Circles it’ll be.

This decision was followed by lots of experimenting with cardboard circles. I like tangible design tools, digital sketching is not for me.

Like this? Fewer? Larger? More filled or more empty?

Decorating yesterday’s cookies.

My mum and my brother are here to celebrate Christmas with us. He doesn’t take up much space, but she is like a kid, and not in the best of ways. She needs constant entertainment and she expects us to provide it. If we don’t, she gets grumpy. So instead of relaxing, we need to make a plan to keep these days full of activities. Some of these we’d do anyway, like cooking extra delicious Christmas meals. In fact, it’s possible that we would do most of them. But it’s one thing to go out for a walk together because we feel like it, and another thing to do it because I have to keep other people’s moods up.

It didn’t use to be like this. Probably this is a large part of why I don’t enjoy Christmas any more.

The Christmas thing is in full swing.

Cookies were made, gifts were opened, plenty of food was eaten.

For the past few Christmases, I’ve had to make more and more of an effort to enjoy this circus at least somewhat. I used to be able to. Now it’s just a chore.

Adrian’s class started the day with Christmas songs, followed by advent fika.

Every year it keeps surprising me that none of the teachers realizes that the singing would sound a lot better if someone stood in front of the kids and helped them all keep the same pace.

(Grumpy, yes. We still have too much to do at work and I am not even sure yet that I can get the day before Christmas off.)

I’m tired, work is stressing me out, it’s been gray and wet outside since forever, and there is no joy. I struggle to even enjoy reading, or photography, or blogging.

So I take this lovely apple to bring me at least a little bit of joy.

I walked to my desk this morning, unpacked my things and sat down to work. Not noticing at all that the desk to my right had been swapped with another. It is still a white desk but everything about it is different. It has that privacy panel right next to my desk (the other desk didn’t). It has one monitor (the other desk had two). There is a different chair in front of it.

And I didn’t notice any of it! Until an hour later, when the guy who now sits there arrived, and I saw that it wasn’t the person who usually sits there. The desk, within arm’s reach, was completely different than it used to be and I just didn’t notice anything. Not even a large, dark privacy panel privacying right inside my field of view!

Even worse. They later told me they had moved their desks around yesterday afternoon, so I had sat next to this new arrangement already yesterday and not noticed anything.

Total tunnel vision. All I see is what is right in front of me.