Shake It Out!

Oh my! Today is the last day of October! The month really has flown on by and all I have to show for it was a wicked feastage for Emma's birthday and a bloody sore back! I spent all last week in loads of pain but this week I am slowly fighting back and shaking it out! Or well.. at least trying to! 

Stuffing my back like this with just over a month until Pinko comes to stay isn't really the brightest of moves but in saying that.. I have never been known to be bright and once Pinko is here, I think she will do enough falling for the both of us.. err sorry I mean random gravity checks. Which will hopefully mean I will have a pretty pain free winter.. that would be nice. Not that I stuffed my back from falling over this time.. it decided to throw itself out for no good reason. Old age perhaps? 

Today's google doodle was pretty awesome and started off my day rather well.

I sometimes wish that I lived in America for Halloween.. I know Em and I would go all out and have the best place on the block! There is just so much stuffs! At prices that don't fully break the bank also lol 

All we have here, is this 8-bit pumpkin lantern that we picked up the last time we were there..

It looks pretty wicked in the window when its all blinky blink! But that really is the extent of Halloween in these parts for us.. sad but true. Maybe one year Em and I will head over to American for the Halloween reason and enjoy lots of... everything! It is.. after all..  the time when they have pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks and Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins..

 ..which in my opinion have the better ratio of peanut butter to chocolate than their cups.. the christmas trees are pretty good too.. but I prefer the pumpkin for at least pumpkins sake! Coz really.. pumpkins are as cool as ducks! Speaking of, Gregory is still in the books. I guess it's too cold to move! Lazy duck.

Not only has the time changed.. its so dark already! and the weather has gotten much colder! We had our first bit of snow fall on the weekend.. a tiny bit but it was there all the same. Feels too damn early for such shenanigans! The snow hasn't been back but the cold temps have been.. we got to -5! I even had to break out my winter jacket and boots.. and now I am sporting a lovely blister. Damn seasonal shoes that you have to break in each time. I must admit, with the crisp cold weather come some beautiful bright days and some very lovely views around the place.. especially from my kitchen window. I spend many a hour standing there just gazing out.. usually while drinking a tea or coffee, it will be something I will greatly miss when we eventually leave this place.

November will be another slow month.. but December will be lots of adventures, photos and funny stories! With Pinko here and it being Christmas there will be lots to report.. after all we do have a Berlin/Stockholm trip coming up! Epic! Of course with it being Christmas.. that means the Elf Jumper shall get broken out! [YouTube clip] oh you know you just can't get enough of these darling elves! Especially the dancing!

Well that is about as long as I can sit in this bloody computer chair.. damn back.. makes me all grumbly!

Birthday Food Madness!

September left and October showed up rather swiftly! Before I knew it we were 2 weeks into the new month and Emma's birthday was a knocking! As per usual for Emma's birthday there is sandwich cake! Life gets so much better with the addition of sandwich cake.. unless you are currently off dill. Which is exactly what my life is at the moment. After the little throw uppy madness of Stockholm [re-live Stockholm?] and discovering that dill is just as strong, if not stronger, coming back up.. I can no longer eat dill without feeling like its vomit. As you can imagine that makes me incredibly sad as I love love LOVE sandwich cake! Maybe next year I will be all ok to eat it again.. I sure do hope so!

After everyone munched down on sandwich cake and drunk a little booze and non-booze, it was of course time for the sweet part of the meal. This year was extra special as I was the greatest girlfriend alive and ordered macarons to be sent directly from Paris! which as you can imagine.. made Emma the happiest little Swede in these here parts. In turn, I am now taking a fancy to them myself.. whereas before I didn't much enjoy them and always found that it had an after-taste that just didn't play nice at the party in my mouth.

24 macarons direct from Pierre Hermé Paris wasn't quite enough as the sweet portion of the meal so I got my bake on and made carrot cake bites with lemon cream cheese frosting and wacky confetti sprinkled on top! But wait there's more!.. blue vanilla mini cupcakes with lemon curd filling and topped with a pinkish vanilla cream cheese frosting... with of course yellow sprinkles thrown on top for good measure!! Oh you think that is all? You are wrong! I always whipped up a batch of Darth Vader coffee toffee filled chocolate heads.. with Vader comes Storm Troopers, so I made some of those too.

Now to enjoy the food porn!

Deliciousness that is sandwich cake!
No special occasion is complete in this family without it.

Macarons!
Perhaps a new special occasion treat?

Carrot cake with lemon cream cheese frosting!
Who doesn't love a mouthful of carrot cake goodness?
and there's wacky confetti!

Mini cupcake fun!
Blue yums yums! One always needs a splash of colour in life!
Even better when it's a tasty splash!

The inner geek was also invited to the party!

The following day, we started it with cake and I ended up on a sugar high.. everything seemed rather sparkly! Some times you just have to do this sort of thing to yourself! Like the time in NYC with the donuts for the Doughnut Plant. I would do that all over again, given the chance. [re-live NYC?] There are just things in life that you do and there's no turning away from.. also much like the macaron experience in London! [re-live London?]

Ok, sidetracked! back to what I was saying.. sugar high and then we headed off to IKEA where we course purchased some knick knacks.. and it was the last time that we would ever set foot in the original IKEA. IT was pretty empty in comparison to what I was used to and sadly one of the things that we actually wanted to buy wasn't there.. so Miss Bo Bemma might have to trek out to the Malmö one one day after work and pick it up.. if she wants it that badly that is. We wandered around.. then headed up to have some meatballs.. you can't go to IKEA without having meatballs with spuds, gravy and lingonberry jam! Best combo ever! I still remember the first time Emma told me about the addition of the jam and I was all like.. no way! tried it and discovered that shit is a winner! yum yums!

One of our best purchases of the day was this..

How awesome are these cushions? Seriously rocking, right?

The rest of the day was spent snuggled on the couch watching some tv and trying to feel better from all the consumed food.. then around 6pm we enjoyed some leftover macarons with a cuppa tea.. #lifeisgood