Buns

In Sweden we have a bun we eat during the winter season. We call it “semla”. It’s a wheat bun filled with whipped cream and almond paste. I love it!

It’s a sweet wheat bun that you split in two – a smaller lid and a bigger bottom part. Remove a little bit of the middle part of the bottom bun (hard to explain). Fill the “hole” with almond paste. If I ever decide to make this bun I will buy the paste but it’s essentially almonds crumbs and sugar mixed together.

Whip the cream and put it on top of the paste. Place the lid on the cream. Sprinkle icing sugar in the lid.

Semla!

Soft lip

I love lip balms. I seem to buy them all the time. I buy tinted ones and those without colour. If I don`t use any lip balm my lips get dry.

 

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A small part of my lip balm collection.

I think my obsession with lip balms come from my insecurities about my mouth. I have always thought it was too big. Even today I don`t like it. That`s interesting considering the lip hysteria today. Many put fillers in their lips and can`t get them big enough. I should probably be grateful I got naturally big lips.

If I don`t wear lip balm my lips get dry and that makes me feel more insecure about my mouth. I have a lip balm in every pocket and bag! I know I don`t need as many as I have but I can`t help it. My favourite part when it comes to my skin is of course my lips. Put me in a store and you`ll soon find me at the lip care counter.

The best lip balms to me are the ones where you don`t need an applicator to put them on.

The lip balm above was a good one. It was soft and easy to put on.

I have tried lip balms in many different price ranges and I don`t think the most expensive ones were the best. They all made my lips soft regardless of the price. The more expensive ones had a nicer package but that`s not important to me. It`s the inside that counts and what I care about.

 

Dizzy

20170111_151652I told you yesterday about a tv show that was about different diets. An english man went to America and experienced the paleo diet along some other diets.

Yesterday evening I was having my evening meal and found a tv show about being over weight. I decided to watch it while I ate. In this tv show yet another english man went to America to study some research about how to fight obesity.

However, he began the show in England where he watched different experiments on how to stop people from over eating. In one experiment the subjects in the study had been given some hormones to see if that could make them eat less. A researcher gave them this huge portion of food! It was enough to feed three people. If anyone would eat it all they would explode!

Anyway back to the America part of the show. I was enjoying my meal and the show and was feeling relaxed. That changed……..when this english man also went to a poop clinic! Earlier that day the diet show man (which I told you about yesterday) went to the same or another poop clinic! Two poop clinic visits in the same day! Both times I had to watch these clinics I was eating! This time though they didn’t show when they mixed the stuff to get a better texture.

The diet show earlier that day, went to the clinic because of the research that if you insert someone elses “stuff” in you the bacteria in your body can become healthier. This show said that if you insert the “stuff” from someone else it could help you loose weight.

Both of the “stuff”segments were disgusting. And they made me loose my appetite.

Diet

20170111_151652.jpgI watched a tv show about diets today. An english man went to America to learn about different diets. He was refreshingly honest and I laughed many times.

One of the diets was the”paleo” diet. You eat the kind of food they ate in the stone age. It consists of all kinds of meat, vegetables and nuts. You can’t have any rice or other carbs. The english man went to a retreat where they ate grilled meat and they exercised stone age style which means they had shovels they pretended to dig with. The participants at the retreat couldn’t be more into this diet. They had never felt better. They were skinny but the english man questioned how healthy the diet was. The food was greasy and salty and it made him feel tired. He met with the leader of the retreat and that was hilarious. The leader said “he was 60 looked like 30 and felt like 18”. The english man said that he was 45 himself and that the leader looked like he could be his father!

I find that diets can be healthy but I could never be “on one”. I have to eat different foods to feel good. I have been a vegetarian and even then I varied what I ate. Now I eat meat but I could never be a paleo dieter. If I don’t eat carbs I feel sick.

When I watched the diet show I was having dinner. I ate an omelette and was happy with my eggs and tv until……..they showed an poop transplant! The transplant can change the bacteria in your body and is helpful for some. The doctor at the poop clinic took out a plastic jar with……..poop. I didn’t like my omelette anymore. She put the poop in a mixer and mixed it. I couldn’t eat the rest of my omelette.

Another diet was the fruitarian diet. The fruitarians only eat fruit. I could never even try that diet because I would be hungry all the time. I wonder how much fruit they have to buy to get even the slightest sense of not being hungry. And it must be expensive.

Fight

I’ve had a hard time lately. My anxiety has been through the roof. I know why and because I’ve had my anxiety for so long I know it gets better. That’s one “good” thing about having had this illness such a long time.

When I was diagnosed with depression I was in a bad state. I spent my days in bed crying. I felt like closing my eyes and never open them again. I thought things would never get better. What made it better was that I found a reason to live. I began “dog sitting” and that made everything a little better. I will tell you about this dog in another post.

If you suffer from any kind of mental illness, don’t give up! I know it’s a struggle but you can’t give up. The best advice I can give to make it bearable is that you try to find something that keeps you going. I know what it’s like to be at the bottom of the “depression hole” and I know it can seem impossible to find something that brings some relief to the pain. As long as that something isn’t harmful to you anything goes.

I find it hard to talk about myself and because of that, going to a therapist used to be stressful to me. I hated to be in the therapist’s office and talk about how I felt. To make it easier I found that if I bought junk food and stayed up late at night after the “the talk about me” session it felt better. Stay up late and junk food is an harmless “something”. I think especially the greasy food helped.

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This little girl gives me strength.

 

 

Making

Thank you very much grocery store!

Thank you for not having butternut squash on the shelves today. I had planned on cooking butternut squash even though I have no idea how to. You saved me from trying to make a meal that would have been……….not tasty.20170111_151604.jpg

Neutered

Kajsa was 1,5 years old when she was neutered. I had to put her through the operation because after every time she had been in heat she became pseudopregnant. It happened every time. She had milk in her nipples and she lost her fur. One time she even thought she had given birth to puppies. There are medicines you can give dogs when they become pseudopregnant but I didn’t want to keep medicating her for the rest of her life.

On the day of the surgery I went with her to the vet and it was hard to leave her there. The vet said I could come and get her that afternoon. I went home and was too nervous to do anything.

The afternoon came and I was happy that I was going to see her again. When I got to the vet he said that she was far from recovered. She was fighting for her life. I cried and thought that even though I only had her for a short while she would forever be in my heart.

The vet told me to leave her there for a while longer and to call later. I don’t remember much of anything right after I left her again. I couldn’t wait too long before I called and the relief I felt when they said she was fine can’t be described!

I went to get her and the first thing I heard when I opened the door was her barking! That’s my Kajsa. She came out with a plastic cone around her neck and she looked weak. I knew I had done the right thing when the vet said there were many cysts on the things they had removed. No one knows what that could have brought in the future. The nurses said she probably wouldn’t be able to walk in the days to come but she did. She walked on her own that very day and she ate. She was the crazy girl she is after a short while.20170111_181146.jpg

Buying

-Honey there’s only five bananas left!

-There’s five in the freezer.

-That’s right but they are the ones I planned on making a dessert with.

That’s me. I always make plans to bake or cook things I know never will happen. I put the bananas in the freezer because I’ve read recepies where they have to be frozen. I probably never will make the banana dessert and I have to throw them away.

I have peppermint oil and dried fruits “just incase”. I buy crazy spices and seeds and tell myself I will use them. I buy vegetables and fruits I don’t know what to make of. I buy crackers and cheese because I might one day like it. Crazy!20170109_155011.jpg

Mug cake

I have to eat in the evening. I can’t skip that meal. They say breakfast is the most important meal but for me evening meals are just as important. With that said I find it hard to know what to make. I almost always eat sandwiches but that bores me after a while.

That’s why I’m happy I have found mugcakes! I have seen mugcake recepies before but they have all been a celebration of all unhealthy things. This mugcake is not the most healthy thing you can eat but it’s healthy enough for me.

Mugcakes are what it sounds like, a cake in a mug. You make the batter in a mug and then you bake the batter in the mug in a microwave. East!

Blueberry muffin mugcake.

Ingredients:

4 tbsp flour

2 tbsp sugar

1/8 tsp baking powder

1/16 tps baking soda 

3 tbsp milk

10 blueberries (I used frozen)

Mix all the ingredients in an microwave “proven” mug.

Streusel.

1 tbsp cold butter

1,5 tbsp flour

1,5 tbsp sugar

1,4 tsp vanilla extract (I used powder)

Mix the ingredients in a bowl. “Pour” it over the blueberry mixture and put the mug in the microwave. The recepy said to bake at 1200 W for 1 minute. Our microwave only has 750 W and I baked the muffin for 1,5 minutes.

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My dog

I went to “My dog” this week. It`s an annual dog expo.

20170105_123834The expo is lovely and it`s all about dogs. You can find everything there. The best thing for me is that there are dogs everywhere you go. Most of them are there to be showcased (I don`t know if that`s the right word). There are all kinds of dogs. All sizes.

 

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Jack Russell.

 

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The big dog wanted to do just about everything else but walk around in that ring.

 

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I love to buy these things (blurry picture I know).

 

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Kajsa`s breed among the other terriers.

 

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They show how you can workout with your dog.

 

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Showcases are being held here.

 

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Mom didn`t take me with her.

Kajsa couldn`t come with me because she gets stressed out. It`s wild in there with all the dogs and people and even I think it can get too much. She got toys though and I think she was happy about that. I could have bought much more than I did however I had to stop spending money after a while. It`s easy to get carried away there.