I looked for another embroidery course for the spring term but didn’t find anything I liked. The courses offered are all intro to this and beginning that, and “learn seven basic stitches”, and I really don’t need any of that. All the more fun, advanced courses are either full-time (for people who want to go pro) or weekend workshops, especially during the summer.

But I did find an embroidery club instead. They meet every other Thursday, and there appear to be no expectations or requirements at all for becoming a member. Just pay a small membership fee, turn up, and embroider. And even that last one seemed almost optional – some of the other ladies (because they were all ladies) turned up with an embroidery project but then barely touched it at all and spent the two hours holding it while socializing.

I brought something random (one of the leftovers from the freehand embroidery course this autumn, the painted fabric is getting some random stripes of running stitch) just to keep my fingers busy. Next time I’ll start a real project.

CPR training. Staying alive, staying alive, ah, ah, ah, ah, staying aliiiii-ive…

I did CPR training once before, many years ago, when Ingrid was a baby – I remember paying extra attention to instructions about taking care about choking in babies. It’s way past time for a refresher.

In the UK they generally teach hands-only CPR, but in Sweden rescue breaths are part of the standard procedure. The practice dummies are equipped with small plastic bags as fake lungs. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it felt realistic, but the chest actually rose and fell as I blew in air, so that was kind of cool.

Another cool thing about this course was its thoroughness. We didn’t just practice CPR on its own, but also whole scenarios – from finding an unconscious person, through calling 112, giving them the necessary details without prompting, putting them on speaker, and only then starting CPR. It was hard to keep it all straight on first attempt!

I also learned about how defibrillators work, and got to practice with a training version. That was completely new to me and had I ever been in a real emergency situation before now, I would have had no idea where to even start, so I wouldn’t have tried using one even if it had been right next to me. Now I know what to do. In theory, at least.

Look, an actual workout photo, with no kettlebells in sight!

Actual sunlight hit a few small, thumb-sized spots in the garden today.

I haven’t been out walking since September. As these things tend to go during the dark and gray months of November and December (with Christmas also distracting). But today was forecast to be a rare bright and sunny day so Adrian and I went out walking on Järvafältet.

The weather has been wet for some time and it rained a lot during the night, so we mostly stuck to wide, well-maintained paths. The smaller, wilder trails are usually more fun, but they were very muddy today.


We did get sunshine for most of our walk. Later when the clouds came, Adrian was a rare speck of colour in an otherwise pretty dull-coloured landscape.

We had to give up on our shortcut path across one of the fields halfway, when we realized it was flooded and impassable.

Lake Säbysjön, which our walk circled around, was still all iced over, even though we’ve had quite a lot of above-zero days recently.

There were some brave skaters on the ice, and a short time later an entire group of them passed us, more than a dozen people. I guess the ice is more solid than it looks, all wet and watery though it is.

For our lunch break we stopped at the birding tower on the southwest shore of the lake. We couldn’t spot any birds, but there was a lonely ice fisher. That’s that little black and white dot to the right of the middle. He was quite interesting to watch. I thought he’d just sit at his hole all the time, but he had multiple holes that he moved between, and even drilled a new one.

Nysse likes to go in and out of the house, but sometimes we struggle with communication around that. He can sit next to the French doors and look like he’s itching to go out, but then we open the door and he doesn’t budge. So we ignore him for a while, and then after a while it turns out that he really does want to go out.

It’s not a big deal, nobody is particularly frustrated about it, but I thought we could make it easier for him and hung up a little bell for him.

It’s really, really not working. I’ve tried to demonstrate both with my own hands and with his paws, but he doesn’t seem to get it. He just sits and waits and doesn’t even touch the bell.

Interestingly, when he is out and wants to get in, he usually has no difficulty making himself seen and heard – stands on his back paws, taps at the windows with his front paws, makes noise…

Nysse’s friend Morris has been by twice since I hung up the bell. He got it immediately, without any demonstrations, even. I was sitting in my office, working, didn’t see that he was at the door, and heard the bell. Went there, saw him, let him out.

Today he was here again and did the same thing. I let him out and closed the door after him. A minute later Nysse realized that Morris had gone out, looked longingly after him, but STILL DID NOT RING THE DARN BELL. I let him out anyway, of course, so he could trail after Morris.

I guess we maybe didn’t get the most trainable of cats. He is kind and cuddly and not stupid – but he is clearly better at hunting squirrels than at understanding human ways of doing things.

Store-bought socks either reach mid-calf (so they don’t fit and therefore slouch down) or ankle-height (so they’re too short to be warm). I tried to aim for a golden mean but I think I aimed too low. But one of the very nice aspects of handmade things is that I can hand-re-make them – in this case by adding another bit to the top. It kind of looks decorative, even, extra fancy.

I know, yet another boring dumbbell photo. (I am bad at remembering to take photos during the workout.) But I am proud of sticking to the workout habit when, some days, I really don’t feel like it.

And that’s only before starting. I still tell myself that I can stop partway through but I never end up taking that out. I do actually enjoy the workouts, and the pleasant muscle soreness afterwards.

13|37 turns 13.

In between all the knitting, I sometimes make a little progress on the fabric storage box that I’m making out of the embroidery samples.

It keeps growing in complexity. First I realized the sides needed stabilizing so there was interfacing to be ironed on. Then I decided the edges needed piping (of sorts – this is technically not piping but a Swedish patchwork technique called skarvsöm). Then I didn’t want to machine stitch the edges and hand sewed them instead. Then I started working on the lining which also needed some padding, which I’m also stitching by hand. So it’s nowhere near done.

I haven’t sewed much recently, because I haven’t felt like it. I’ve sewn cushions and curtains and whatnot when needed, but it’s never been one of my favourite crafts. I think I’m learning now that I like sewing but not machine sewing. The two skirts I made I also hand stitched.