A few notes on how and where I work

Yesterday's post got me thinking a lot about how and where I work and I thought a blog post about it could interest some of you:

I work from home and have dedicated a room to it - my studio. I tried working for a year in a studio a short walk from home in Gothenburg, but it didn't work well - I still did more and better work when being at home. I really enjoy working from home as long as the room is separated from the rest of the apartment. When not working I hardly spend time in my studio - on weekends and evenings I close the doors to it to get some distance and let home feel like home.

Important to me is to dress well before entering my studio - I always wear clothes I feel good in and would wear if there were colleagues around. Personally I don't feel very professional if I'm working in my nightgown, and I never work in my bed. A good start of a work day is to get dressed and go out for a walk; it doesn't have to be a long one, but at least to get out of the house and get that feeling of taking a walk to work.

Like I wrote yesterday, I don't make plans to meet friends during daytime on weekdays. I need every day to be a tabula rasa that I can fill with whatever pops up. I never really know what will come to my inbox workwise and inspiration & flow are things that are really difficult to schedule. I do however sometimes meet my husband or friends spontaneously during the day if I all of a sudden need a change of environment. An unplanned lunch date can be very refreshing.

I hardly ever make to-do-lists (they are more stressful than helpful to me) but I try to have some routines (that I break pretty often though), like:
Packing and shipping orders at least every second or third day.
Dedicating an hour or two on one weekday to respond to emails (sadly I can't respond to all, sorry for that).
Taking pictures every day (not because I "have" to, but because I want to).
Updating this blog (a good blogging tip is to only update when you really feel like doing it).

My work contains a lot of running errands; to buy yarn, go to the post office, do some shopping at the art supply store etc. I try to do all this by foot so I get some fresh air and exercise. Also it's not always the most fun part of my work, so I bribe myself with coffee on the way and take a lot of pictures to feel good.

What am I working with? Since I moved to Berlin I have focused on running my online shop, making Wrist Worms, keeping up this blog, selling some pictures and interviews to magazines and working on a few amazing projects like this one. Right now I am at a turning point where I don't really know where I'm heading, which is super exciting and I am looking forward to this spring a lot!

What do I love most about my work? That I don't really know what will happen next - that's what keeps me going because I am always curious of new things, surprises and changes.

This morning:

This morning I met my friend Hanna for coffee early in the morning, the advantage of both working as freelancers :)

Have decided to be pretty strict on weekdays which means no planned dates during daytime. Early morning is OK though, and spontaneous ones if I need a break. I get too distracted from work if I plan something in the middle of the day, and end up not working neither before nor after. How about you?

The Fikers

Pic 1 & 2: Sunday fika with Johan & Trixi.
Pic 3 & 4: Monday fika with Trixi. Trixi makes beautiful necklaces etc, I am a happy owner of 2 :) You find her creations here.

A Sunday last Fall, Part III

Continuing this walk, there will be a couple of more parts. It's so much fun to have friends who share my interest in taking pictures. And it's so much fun to have this blog where I can post them, because what else would I do with them? :)

A Sunday last Fall, Part II

A walk with Trixi around Victoriastadt, a neighbourhood I also recommend in this interview today (in Swedish).

A Sunday last Fall, Part I

One of the best Sunday's last Fall was the one I spent with Trixi walking around half of the city taking pictures and laughing. Here you can see Trixi's pictures of our day. I have many more to share, but now I don't have time since I'm going out to meet... Trixi!

Happy Sunday!

Thank you for sending such kind and loving comments on my previous post. It was the first time I wrote something so personal here, it's somehow easier to be more personal with pictures :)

How we met

It is a really long story that stretches out over a year. The story of how Johan and I met. No, not only how we met, but how we got from first meeting and not really liking eachother to becoming best friends and eventually more than friends. This is the short version:

The first day at design school we met, it was August and Johan was the first person I had an opinion about. We had been told to sit together with two other persons in one corner of the classroom. I saw that Johan was going to sit on the opposite side of me and I thought Oh no, not him!. Don't know what it was that made me feel that way, but certainly he made me feel something immediately although it wasn't anything positive. We started building towers of stuff so we wouldn't have to see eachother. He thought I was annoying, I thought he was a young bitch. Maybe I should add to the story that I wasn't available and not on the look for a new partner. And when it came to Johan, not even a new friend.

Eventually we learned that we both love food. One day he sent me a text message Can you recommend me a restaurant here in Gothenburg? I'm going to have some visitors. I did, he loved the place.

Time passed. I wanted to invite some of my classmates over to watch a movie (a strange thing, I have never liked to watch movies together with a bunch of people) but the only one who came was Johan. For the first time we really started talking with eachother, well not much of a choice when there was just the two of us at my place. OK, first we both fell asleep to the movie to avoid a conversation. All of a sudden I wasn't that annoying to him anymore. All of a sudden he wasn't that much of a young bitch. We slowly started to become friends.

And friends we were. I know exactly when I fell in love with him, it was horrible. He was so amazing. It was the worst feeling ever because I knew there was someone who was going to get hurt, I have never been so confused. I started reading everything backwards, I started thinking backwards and thought how not even the worst movie could be this bad. He bought me my first beer ever on that night when I later on understood that I fell for him; a Guinness. On a certain date I always drink a Guinness to celebrate the day I fell in love with him. He didn't know, he had no idea at all. We ate crêpes outdoors, it was cold and dark and so much of a harsh Swedish winter as you can imagine. We did everything together. Barbequed on a beachvolleyballfield, made sandwich cake, talked the whole nights in front of the fireplace, organized parties, went shopping for a crazy good looking dress, listened to music that made us feel too many things, argued on the phone while I was in Berlin and he in London, slowly getting closer and closer. I kept my feelings a secret for a couple of months, not wanting to admit it to myself, waiting for it to pass. I could feel his scent in a room of forty people and I was for some reason sure he was never going to fall in love with me. I really thought it would pass.

It didn't pass. I moved out of the apartment I shared, to live alone. I had searched for a place for weeks and the only place I got my hands on was strangely enough an apartment very close to where Johan lived. Scariest ever to move in, because I had no idea where Johan and I would go - if we would even stay friends. He doesn't know when he fell in love with me, it was too hard for him to admit those feelings due to someone else being involved. We spent the whole summer together cooking, talking, biking, cutting eachother's hair, swimming, walking, eating, meeting friends. And kissing when no one saw. A Sandra thinking backwards, a Johan not knowing what he wanted - rollercoaster of emotions deluxe. Sometimes he whispered I want to grow old with you in my ear when he thought I was sleeping. That's something we both share - we are both very definite. If we get into a relationship, we do it with a plan. And so it was September and we said What the fuck, let's be together at the pub where we later on made all the big decisions in life so far; moving in together, getting married, moving to Berlin and so on.

Cheese plate

I'm in love with that blurry man in the 2nd picture.
We've been friends for over 8 years now. Did I ever tell you the story about how we met?

Summer at home

These pictures are from last summer, mostly from my studio but also from some other corners of my apartment. Some of them I shot the day after Freunde von Freunden were here.