Coldest Day

Today it was the coldest day since 1949 in Sydney. It was -5 in penrith this morning. Was still 16 degrees in the city at midday..

I'm not complaining. But i'm rahter cold as they don't know how to insulate houses here. It seems that when they put insulation in houses 16 year olds die. Not very good. They should send their old midnight oil leaders to sweden to learn about tripple glassed windows. Very toasty.

Somehow I can't get the reallt cute picture of eskimos I had lined up to load

so Imagine really cute enuits at the top of the page please

Long time, nothing written.

It's not due to lack of things happening that I haven't written anything. It's the total opposite. To much things in one go and I became very overwhelmed. Some great things. My new role was finally announced, which made telling people what I do a lot easier, you know when you no longer just some random person wandering into the department asking what people are doing but actually also can tell them why I'm there. I'm very exited about this new role it's quite different from what I've done before so that is scary, which means I'm not sleeping much at the moment. But that is timed perfectly you see cause no one else is sleeping either due to the world cup games being showed at 11.30 at night through to 4.30 in the morning.

We had a great weekend with midsummer party in the apartment. We made tons of food and I tried to cure salmon above, a picture above (that is not the salmon I cured that is just a picture of cured salmon that I've stolen of the Internet). As always with parties there are some things that occurs the day after like how did the conversation about people with both aspengers and toureetes start, why is the floor in the toilet covered with pie crumbs and what happened to the candles in the hallway. All and all a great night really.

Other not so great things. The ring with the giant square stone is now a giant square stone with a cracked corner. I had just finished setting the stone and I was going to level it out, and I cracked the corner. So that was a bit shit. I have been trying to replace it, I have been at 5 gemstone stores in Sydney trying to find a princess cut moonstone to no avail. Moonstones are very rarely faceted as the beauty of the stone is shown best as a cabochon and they are also soft and scratch easily so a faceted stone shows wear much easier. I did however find some really nice checkerboard cut chalcedony that I know have in a little bag that I can poke at and go...ohhh pretty.

Anyway. I'm still looking for the moonstone. Secondly, I found that the second ring that I fabricated and had cast in gold, they casted it in the wrong colour of gold. It was casted in white gold. So I had to ask them to re-cast it and I have to wait until the end of the week.

And I'm running out of time I've realised. There are only so many hours in the day and I don't have time to make as much jewellery as I did before. I think it is because I really like my job. So I spend so much more time and energy there so I don't have that much left over when I get home at night.

Earrings

I'm working away in my little studio. The rings for the giant square stone is finished and I'm having it cast in gold this week. I'm quite exited to see how it's going to come out. It should be finished by wednesday and then all I should have to do is set the stone. The reason I have fabricated the ring in Silver to then later have it cast in solid gold is that fabricating in gold is very expensive. As you have to file so much material away.

The above earrings is for Mr T:s niece. They are white topaz ones, I hope she will like them. She wanted small ones, but they looked so ugly as studs so I made them into solid wire earrings.
I'm gonna upload them to facebook let her have a say.

Other than that, My new job as a boss for many people is proving to be interesting and exiting and a little scary all at the same time. Not much sleep I will have for a while methinks

The Red Jacket

Little Ms M pointed out in her comment that my jacket has been around for a while. It's not even the half truth. I bought that jacket in a Second hand shop when I was student in 1998. I often pair it up with a mulberry handbag I got given as a present in I think 1989.

The reason why I have so much old stuff, is that 1. I don't enjoy shopping very much and 2. I get really attached to my things.

I reckon the price per wear for the red jacket is probably so low that the jacket is actually paying me now,

New Face Decorations

I have glasses. Not all the time, everyday, but when I read or work in front of the computer I wear glasses. As I never really wear them that much I have always bought very simple non-offensive frames that you don't pay much attention to nor pay much money for (Specsaves here I come)

These are my second best ones. The thing is that they are maroon....I'm not sure about maroon.

Anyway, as my sight is getting a little worse I now need new glasses. And I will need to wear more often. Hence I need to have a look for new frames that looks good and "enhance" my style if you like.

I want to get architect style glasses. You know the type, where you can tell from a long distance that this person is Scandinavian. I call them Scandinavian architect glasses. So Mr T and I walked into the city yesterday to have a look. It wasn't a good idea, by the time we got there we where both tired and grumpy. And of course I did not find any that I liked. I spent most of the time getting frustrated that I could not find anything, the people in the shop was unbelievable unhelpful and I ended up getting furious at the frog looking lady working in the shop and Mr T at the same time.

Hence we left without new glasses. But I do have some photos. So I need a little help. Which of all these glasses are the best ones. Or should I keep looking.
These ones above are my favourite ones. Mr T thinks they are to dark for my complexion and makes me look like I'm an angry librarian. I do not see why that is a problem. Maybe when I go to the library in the future they will treat me nicer and stop giving me fines all the time.
These are Mr T:s favourites. He thinks they make me look very intelligent. I think they look very much like the goggles I wear when I polish. The frames are also red. And my face get's red anyway easily, so they will blend in. But not in a good way.


These ones I like as well, except on the sides they have huge rhinestone D&G sign. And I'm not that big a fan of Dolce & Gabbana to start with, and I hate big logos. And I kind of think that If I'm going to walk around with advertising on my face I would like to get paid, not pay for it.

I like these ones the least. They make me look funny.

Hands and Other things

I have found out that the issue with my hand is inflammation in the tendons. This is good news. However right now I need to rest my hand and take anti-inflammatory medicin. So I will take a little rest from making jewellery. Or I will make less. I will fill the orders I have, and then not do some more for a while.

So I've been thinking about what I will do then with my spare energy. I was thinking I'd buy a sewing machine. First I was thinking I would just fix up my website. But then I realised resting my hand should mean no unnecessary typing as it is the typing that has been getting me into trouble. So no typing. But sewing should be alright, maybe.

So I was thinking, as I find that clothes in Australia are either very expensive or very ugly, I will have to learn to sew nice clothes. So you can expect me to look a little funny for a while until I get a hang of how the sewing machine works. Once I got one that is. I have a tendency to buy very colourfull fabrics and keep them in piles in my room. So I guess I'll just start with them. Expect to see me in a green stripy dress with a gigantic red flower on..or maybe a bright yellow pair of trousers with dandelions. Or hot pink with grey leaves. Those are the fabric I own at the moment. I never really buy fabric with a plan of what to make. I just buy them if I love the colour. My most favourite one is a Turquise sari fabric heavily embroided with gold...I wonder what I could make of that..

Other then that when they checked out the hand they found that I had some issues with discs poking out in the spine. Behind the shoulder blade. Which makes sense as I've had pain there for years. I just thought it was sitting with a bad posture. However after double checking with the super doctor (my auntie), she says it's fine to go running but stay away from the weights.

So that is good. Cause I don't like weights. But I like running.

Swedish National Day celebration

For the first time in my life I have celebrated Swedish National day, at the Svenska Klubben in Sydney. It's a Swedish club in Sydney, there is a number of different clubs and organisations for Swedes and other Scandinavians in Sydney.

The event started with flag raising and singing of the national anthem, followed by traditional folk dancing (pictured above) and finishing of with a really good smorgas bord lunch. And there was a raffle, and even better than that, I won a price. A present voucher for IKEA. No I'm not kidding.

I thought the event was very nice, the food was lovely, I did feel a bit silly with flag raising and national anthem singing, but the great food made up for that.
I have never been much for formalised nationalism, in my 10 years in London I never attended a Swedish group event or even have any swedish friends really. Somehow it feels more important here. Maybe it's because I'm so much further away now.

Anyway, the food was great.

Australia vs Denmark 1-0 in the Friendly

Australia did beat the Danes, more beat then mash I guess. I'm not sure it was the actual Danish team, it seemed to be some kind of Danish/Polish contingent. But it was a friendly. And they played better then they did against New Zeeland last week.

I'm going to have to have a think about who I want to win. But I do think it would be fantastic if Nigeria won...But then again, Salsa Fotball from south america is so very entertaining. Even if they cheat and throw themselves on the floor every 5 minutes.

Italy...NOOOOO, any team but Italy I think..

World Cup Songs

My sister put this one on her her blog, It's South Africas world cup 2010 song. It's not the official Fifa song, the official Fifa song is sung by Shakira which makes no sense as she is from Colombia and not really a good representative of Afrika at all. And it's not a good song either. I prefer this one, eventhought it's sponsored by Coca Cola who I'm brought up to belive is evil.

So while I was going throught and looking for the world cup 2010 songs, (englands was awfull, truly awfull), I was looking for Swedens. Then I remembered that Sweden didn't qualify, which is shocking. Mr T very exitedly pointed out that it made Australia a better fotball nation as they qualified.

Have you ever heard such a thing. They don't even call it by it's right name. It's fotball people, fotball...

They even call their team the Socceroos...

Shocking...

As sweden didn't qualify I will have to suport the Socceroos with all I've got. I hope they mash the Danes...(It's a friendly, but still no excuse not to mash the Danes)