"I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived." ~ Willa Cather

"Helllloooooo everyboooody!" said in that weird Doctor's voice on The Simpsons.

I have been watching a lot of tv recently, what can I say?  Anyway, sorry for the delay, but I have honestly been sick for over a week now.  You haven't missed much, I have been sleeping a lot, going to school a little and have lost my voice somewhere in between.  Turns out I have a virus, I went to the Dr. yesterday because I wasn't getting any better and am tired of being sick.  I have an effing virus and will be stuck with it for another week.  ANOTHER WEEK! This is horrible!  But, I got some cough medicine so now I can sleep without waking up every hour to cough uncontrollably.  The Dr also suggested drinking whiskey... so did Stig-Allan... Maybe I will try that this weekend.

So, last week I did make it to the cold shop for a while and did some flower cutting!

I did a series of wind blown trees:

 With their leaves fluttering around the vase!

 And a fall fox! (animals are really hard!)

 I experimented with different textures and ways of cutting the tree.

 I think I like this one the best... but I am not sure.

 And it has a cute umbrella being blown away!

 I think I might make one more, mostly like the one on the far right... not sure though.

 I also talked to Tove about making a 4 Seasons series with a winter, spring, summer and fall tree.  I might do it if I have time but I am not sure... we will see.

Friday evening Rosanne came into to town!!! She spent the weekend with me and we had a blast! Friday night Bosse and Heidy came over and we all went to a Super Hero Party!  I pained Bosse's eyes like this:

 And we girls were really cute! Heidy is Super Ham (her last name is the brand of ham here), Rosanne is The Devil in Disguise and I am Miss Mystery.  It was really fun to get ready with girls and have a girly night, plus Bosse, but I gave him a good glass book I had he was entertained while we did make up and etc.

 Saturday we went to Malin's with Bjorn and Martin to go to a concert near her house.  This is her ADORABLE house!

 She made us a big meal with potatoes cooked in cream and cheese....

 (this is the table obviously)

 And tasty beer!

 and MOOSE MEAT!!!!

 and "CROWN DEER" which I am not entirely sure what that is in English, it translates to Red Deer whatever that is... we decided maybe it was like elk, not as big as a reindeer or as small as a normal deer... I don't know but it was SUPER GOOD!!!

 And we had a blast!!! 

 We went and saw Björn Rosenström at this concert hall in the woods.  He is really famous in Sweden and sings songs with really hilarious lyrics.  I could understand some of them and my friends translated some of them for me too! We danced and danced and drank and then got to meet him!!

Sorry the photos is sideways but that is his signature.  It says "to Simon" and his name and Rosanne was a very happy girl! (Simon is her boyfriend in Oslo)  Apparently Björn Rosenström used to be a lawyer or went to law school in Göteborg and now travels around singing and being in general pretty awesome.  

Sadly the by the end of the weekend I was speaking in a whisper and pretty hungover.  Go figure.

This week we are doing wine glasses at school and I have been struggling with feet!  I think you have plenty of pictures so I will save the ones from this week for tomorrow.  Now I am going to go drink some more cough medicine which is flavored like salty licorice... only in Sweden!

"Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping." ~ Bo Derek

So, here is the plate that I had some pictures of me making on Friday! I am pleased with it, and I really like the colors!

 I will grind away the tiny foot at the bottom, it is left over from the punty.  It is a little heavy but it is big so I guess that is OK in the long run.

 Monday I worked with Martin doing more encalmo.  He has a memory problem so we kept having to write the steps on the floor.  Needless to say the floor was covered in English, Danish and weird scribbled drawings.  But, I thought this was actually a good and descriptive drawing of what we are doing when we assemble more then two colors!

 I am not really going to try to explain it to you, sorry, but it would take a long time.  So, with Martin I made this bowl.. which is magically made with the SAME color of blue!  Damn it!

 I tried to make another one, and I think Martin did too but it was too hard with the lack of memory and having new partners.  

 This one, the only one of the day, was dropped on the floor, re-puntied, cut crooked twice, and then at the last minute had a clear layer added to it... but, it did end up a bowl... more or less.

The other attempts didn't even make it to annealer... they went straight to the trash!

 Today, Tuesday we went to Essemce (pronounced S-M-Z) the glass supply store!

 In a cute little building with a storage building next to it.

 They had everything!   Here are just a few examples of their cutting edge tools!

OK, this was just sitting in a corner but it is an old engraving tool Vegard says... I don't know how it works but who doesn't love old tools?

 These are some in another corner.  The two on either end are used to hold a cup from the inside after it has been opened.  The one, second from the right, is for making bottle necks, and the others are shears.

 And here are the fancy, new ones! These are all Carla Donna tools from Italy... shiny and nice.

 These are some random jacks that look like they were made for Darth Vader... black and inspired by his helmet I think.

 These are the super new ones, they didn't even have them in the store and they are super expensive, but super pretty!

 They also had loads of colors!

 All labeled and organized... so pretty.  I had expected more but still pretty fun!

 They come in bars of solid color like above or powder color like below!

 They also had all sorts of things you could need... like gathering balls in tiny...

 AND HUGE!

 Pipes in all sizes... tiny and HUGE again!

They had foot tools, protection sleeves and gloves, engraving tools, cutting wheels, pipe turners, grinding papers and more that I can't even think of! It was amazing and a bit intimidating haha.

Afterwards I worked some with Sigrid blowing in some molds.  Then went to evening class where I think I am giving up on the bamboo plate, I am not sure, I will have to look at it again tomorrow.  Then a super hard spin class! And finally home, sweet home.

ANDDDDDDDD!

AND!!!!!

Most exciting news of the day.... My Dad is coming to visit me in about two weeks!!!!  I can't wait to show him everything here!!!!  Also, Rosanne is coming this weekend!  I love visitors!!! :-D

"What did one bowling pin say to another? Hey, you're a knock out!"

So, my weekend was good! It started with a jumping lesson at the barn with Poseidon.  I tried to take a picture of us together because my hair was really cooperating for once but my hands smelled like apples and he wouldn't stop trying to eat them... but its pretty cute anyway:

 His head is about the same length as my upper body! 

The lesson didn't go so well, I had a depth perception problem all day.  Now, I know this is a common minor problem for me on a regular basis but Friday was really bad, I was bumping into everything.  And, it turns out when you are jumping you should be able to tell how far away from a jump you are while galloping up to it.  If you can't grasp how much ground your horse is covering, or how quickly they are approaching the jump chaos might ensue.  Or at least loud cursing as you keep missing the distance to the jump over and over again.  Luckily, Poseidon was good, jumped from each bad distance I got him to because for some reason I had him on an over 12' stride length.  Good idea? NO! What was wrong with me?! Finally, at the end I got it fixed and we jumped around well and understood each other better... thank goodness it didn't end how it started!

Afterwards I went bowling with Bjorn, his dad and Martin at the bowling alley in Nybro.  Here they often have bowling allies under swimming pools... which seems weird until you remember they are actually shaped very similarly and I think they might have this set up at the Biltmore Estate... maybe?  Still odd seeming to me.

 Anyway, when we got there it had just started "Disco Bowling" with black lights, disco balls and club music.  Not what we were expecting.  Also, unexpectedly to me, there was no alcohol... which is pretty crucial to good bowling I feel.  We all had different approaches to our throw/roll/toss whatever.  Bjorn literally held the ball with the back of his hand facing the pins, threw the ball and then ended up in some sort of weird squat at the end of the lane... I should have taken a video I have never seen anything more absurd!  It was hilarious!

 Martin had a very graceful proper roll.  He did a few practice swings (what do you call it?!) and then walked up in long steps, swung the ball and even had the little foot twist to the side thing that you see in movies!  He was the best one of us... really good.  His scores were nearly twice mine!

Afterwards we watched some soccer (Denmark vs Cypress)  and then partied some with some of the older students who oddly live in the student house.  It was nice to hangout with different people, and even Sigrid and Vegard got to come out for a while! 

Saturday I took it easy, cleaned, gymed and made an amazing dinner!

 Smoked salmon, oven roasted potatoes with thyme and green beans!!  Very tasty :)

Sunday morning I got up early for a "Blueberry Jumping" day at the barn.  It is an internal competition at the barn, against only people who ride there.  I was a bit nervous because I hadn't ridden Poseidon in this kind of event before, he likes to stop at jumps and I didn't think Pia was going to be there.  I had gone to sleep thinking "horse in front of your leg, sit straight over the jump, short canter, hold his mouth, use your whole leg, and don't stop" over and over and over again... it was a lot to think of.  But he was such a cutie when I saw him the morning I decided it was OK to have to think all that to get to hangout with him. 

 Everyone helps set up the course in the big indoor ring.  This is it set around 30 cm for the small ponies.

 Here is the course broken down... thank goodness the jumps are numbered when you ride or I would have forgotten I think! Lots of short turns, bending lines and changing directions.

 It turned out that Pia was there to help before we went in the ring to compete.  Of course Poseidon stopped at each of the warm-up jumps.  Nothing like making me feel confident! Then Pia said something along the lines of "you are a good rider, just ride, don't think, you don't need to" and it all worked out!  I went in the ring, jumped each jump from the perfect distance, never touched a rail and calmly but quickly took care of business!  I was so proud of myself and Poseidon!

 We did 70cm and 80cm (around 2'9") and did very well in both!

 I got a random stranger to take a picture of us... not, the best pose but still it is better then the first picture.

Isn't he adorable?!

I usually call my Mom after a horse show to tell her how it went, I still need to, time keeps escaping me!

 I also had a melon mystery this weekend.  I bought this melon, I had no idea what it was... It was mixed in with all the other melons and I decided to go for it... 

 It is kind of exciting to cut something open and have NO IDEA what it is going to look like!  I have never seen a melon with seeds like this... Why are they in that weird shape?

It tastes kind of like honey dew and cantaloupe together, I mean honestly do melons really ever taste that different?  But I have cut it all up and am enjoying snacks of melon and brie from time to time!  Does anyone know what it is?  If it something super common I will be disappointed haha. 

All in all a pretty good weekend.  Nice weather, good friends, sweet horses and tasty melons... that actually sounds a bit weird out loud...

Also, I seem to have miscalculated the 7,000 views... I don't know how I managed to convince myself that was the case... But, thanks for the views anyway!!!

"Its friday, friday, friday, something something friday..." ~ lame song stuck in my head most of friday... super lame song.

OK, the internet and I currently fighting.  It is winning.  I have tried SEVERAL times to post this blog, everything keeps getting deleted except for the pictures.  You are going to just get pictures and very short descriptions... which is probably better then my wordy, long winded explanations anyway...

Here is the encalmo plate from hell on Thursday:

almost everything possible that could go wrong with this plate did... 

and now it is a piece of art I suppose... or a weapon I am going to throw at the internet...

I am trying not to think about that it is supposed to be round, even, smooth and in general a PLATE...

Here is another plate from Thursday... bad picture but funny reflection of my windblown hair/horns.

Courtesy of Sigrid and Vegard here are some pics of me making another encalmo plate on Friday:

^ The pieces are together and now time to gather some clear on it.

essentially you just get it really hot and then spin it really fast... and if you have a handy assistant they can spin it while you shape it.

This one turned out really well I think!

Worked on bamboo plate by engraving... hopefully I didn't mess it up... but am not sure.

And WONDERFUL Friday surprise I got flowers!

From the best boyfriend in the world, Sam! The address on the card literally just said "Orrefors, Glass Factory" and my name.  But they made it to me and I am super happy! 

I think they are beautiful, nice and fall-esque and they smell good!

I am super happy to have him in my life :)

My weekend was good, and I will fill you in on it later, I want to post this before something happens to it again!

ps: Thanks for reading the blog, it now has over 7,000 views! More then I ever imagined! 

Love you guys,

t