Everything Is Good. A Bit Too Good!

One of the things I had fixed for Helena’s birthday was to prepare a romantic weekend at Villa Fridhem in Norrköping for us in December so we could just get away and enjoy ourselves. And my family chipped in and set her up with a massage at the spa!

So on saturday we were off. After driving for two hours we checked in and the champagne was on ice! Ofcourse it was alcohol-free but that didn’t matter, the chocolate and strawberries still made it perfect! Then we had our first disappointment – the afternoon tea. It was just 3 cakes and one was just finished so we had two cakes and neither of them was any good. No cookies, nothing. Ok, we didn’t pay any extra for it but we were spoilt rotten the last time we did this in Söderfors Herrgård! After that we walked around abit and the feeling that hit me was “if I was in charge of this place I really would fix these million small things that they are missing”. Like when a horse pooped right in front of the entrance, took them hours to clean up!

Anyway, after that it was time for Helena’s massage – and it was good and went on for over an hour! Meantime I was enjoying myself in the swimmingpool with a cold beer! And as I was floating around I had one of those perfect moments when everything is good, no worries, no problems, nothing, cause everything is good! It sured helped that the day before we had gotten all of the assurances in the world that our baby was ok, and that one week before we had frozen two of our three mortgages for the house for 2 years and making sure that interest wouldn’t run away, and everything else was just good!

After that we had a shower and was off to the typical swedish “Julbord” (a buffet of traditional christmas-type food). And I kept eating and eating and at around 9 pm we were both so stuffed that we couldn’t do more than go to our rooms and watch some TV and talk and then go to sleep! It was ridiculous really. And we woke up the next morning still feeling pretty full but then it was time for breakfast which was pretty good but again, small things they should’ve changed to make it better. Like the waffles, took 10 minutes to cook a waffle!

After that we walked around a bit, took another dip in the pool and then we were off going back home. And then we stopped by the christmas market in stockholm city and bought some candy and sausages.

All in all a kick ass weekend! But I can’t help to shake the feeling that life is going a bit too good right now… just praying nothing kicks me down to reality!

And if you want photos they are located here in my new gallery.

Btw, you’ll need a logon for the ew gallery. The username is “friend” and the password is the name of the company I work for, with a capital first letter.

All Is Well

No updates must mean everything is going well. Right?

Well pretty well! We’ve taken our first “becoming a parent”-course which was mostly about the delivery and all of that, expect alot more next time. Today we listened to the heartbeat and Helena had all the measurements and samples taken and everything is super fine according to our nurse.

But tomorrow is a big day! Tomorrow we are gonna do a 4d ultrasound so we can actually see the baby’s face and feet kicking and all of that, really excited over that. We did it with her brother’s kid last year and it was exciting enough but not it’s our kid!!! 🙂

Will probably post pictures of it later!

Missing The Small Things

One thing I take some pride in is that I pay attention to and appreciate the small things in life and the small gestures in a relationship.

Today that backfired.

Everytime I leave for work I kiss my sweetheart, who is usually sleeping, goodbye. Today for some reason I missed that little thing for the first time as far as I know. 30 minutes later she texted me “are you angry at me?”.

Which ofcourse I’m not, I just this once missed it 🙁

Kick Ass Weekend?

Got everything I need for a kick ass weekend now! It’s friday and the 25th which means pay-day in sweden!

Gonna start tonight with fixing some tacos and TLCing my fiance, see two chick-flix then off to bed (wink wink). Then tomorrow we’re off to visit some friends of Helena’s who just had a baby a few weeks ago so we’re bound to get some tips and tricks there. Then we’re going to my parents for a nice Saturday dinner with the family and the extremely predictable reactions to the ultrasound scans. Then on Sunday gonna do some house cleaning, mow the lawn and then enjoy a nice Formula 1 race from Singapore while enjoying a cold one. Don’t pump up my expectations but this weekend is gonna rock 🙂

Another awesome weekend ends…

And so another awesome weekend ends and the first real week of summer begins!
Me and Helena are keeping ourselves busy wether we like it or not, but on saturday it actually looked like we were gonna have a lazy ass afternoon and evening at home with only the TV as company. But oh no, we were called into Heron City to watch “Angels and Demons” with two friends of ours. It was nice to see them again but the movie could’ve been better. Although I gotta say it’s still fun to see movies from Rome where I can say “been there” (although nowadays I say it quite to myself).

But sunday was the big day for us. My family and some of Helena’s joined us at our building site for a little tour of where everything is going to be becauase in exactly one week the house will be lifted in place. And after that tour we went to a nearby lake and had a picknick/lunch, celebrated my 34th birtday (!) and just enjoyed the kick ass weather! After that we went home to find out noone had showed to check out the apartment so to comfort ourself I got to open my birthday present 2 days too early and we spent the night trying to play Metallica on our Playstation.

Absolutely kick ass weekend!

Reconnecting With Old Friends

Back in 2000-2001 I had a friend called Markus. We lived a few kilometer from each other, we both liked “Star Trek”, movies, computer games and the occasional beer (or in his case, bottle of wine). I liked him. But after Eden died and after Markus got married and I did my world tour we kinda lost touch for a long time and what little I heard from him was from my sister who ran into him now and again.

But now we decided that it had definitely been too long so me and my fiance went over to their house for a BBQ, some beers and alot of conversation. And it was good! It was awesome actually. Marcus and his wife now had 2 kids (she was pregnant with the first one last time I saw her!) and he had done so many home improvement I couldn’t believe it was the same Markus! And we had a great time just talking and discussing things about life and stuff. It was great reconnecting and we’re definitely gonna do it more often 🙂

Some New Photos

I’ve added some new pictures in my 2009 album here, although you should log in as “guest” to see them all.

Most importantly I have some pictures from the baptism me and Helena went to a week or so ago. It was for her brothers newborn, Emilia. As always it was a great day and I had a blast! And so did Helena once she got over the anxiety of “what does a godmother do!?”

Then there are some new pictures in our album for our new house. (you really should bookmark cause I’ve grow tired of mentioning every update to it)

Lack of Anything To Say Really

Don’t have much to say here really.
Our house project is moving along nicely. Should be ready to move in around july 15th if all goes well.

Me and Helena are going about our daily lives hoping that the rest of our lives are as good as the past year have been. ‘Cause it has been freaking awesome!

F1 is going down the drain for Ferrari and now it seems like they may not be with the sport for 2010, great fun that’ll be!

Other than that… moving along, nothing to see…

So I’m One Of The "Good Guys" Huh?

Even though it’s been a year now some friends are still surprised that I actually have a girlfriend, that I moved in with, and am now engaged with and building a new house with. I get alot of nice congratulations (like this). But the best compliment have come from three different people (from a family member, a close friend and an estranged friend/former collegue) and that is – “proof that good guys can win”! I like that. I like that people consider me a good guy. I know it’s narcissistic as hell, but it still feels good getting the compliment.

Regarding our house building, everything seems to be set – except for that damn approval from the council that we may actually build the house we want and the way we want it!

We’re Actually Doing This

Now we got the papers sorted. Not signed but they are right here. Just for the lot to build on we’re paying 850.000 swedish crowns. That’s more than I have ever paid for anything in my entire life. Not to mention the 2 million that comes afterwards for the house and everything in it!!

But I hope it’ll be awesome! Once we get the practical details (like “where the f*ck are we gonna get the 10% deposit for the building lot?!”) and we got the house, then everything will be worth it. But the road will be long and bumpy and I will have second thoughts a gazillion times…

Thankfully my Helena is a rock 🙂

So Many Options… I Hate It

Quite often you’ll hear me saying that “variety is the spice of life”, cause I do really like to have the option of doing things one way or the other. But since I met Helena, one thing has become clear – I excel at coming up with different options and ways to do something, but I suck at deciding which is best! Just a simple thing like driving from my parents home to Barkarby, there’s atleast 7 different ways to do it and I can’t decide which is the best! It’s getting pretty frustrating.

And now this entire house thing. I’ve drawn up 100 different ways we can do but can’t decide which is the best. When it affected me, no problem, I’ll go this way and suffer the consequences. But now that it also affects Helena I’m struggling. Which is really unattractive. But right now we’ve narrowed it down to 3 different options and a “due date” on April 1st on which way to go. Unfortunately, one way to go may be “keep on looking”…

Can It Be? Am I Growing Up?

So now I know different foundations to houses. I know about isolation, mortgages, wall-building, roofs, leaks, heating your house and all those other completely irrelevant small things that I one year ago didn’t give a crap about!

One year ago I was living completely happy in my 2 room apartment in Visättra, without a thought in my head about moving anywhere. I’d lived there for 9 years, 9 good years and didn’t see any real reason to move, it’s just a huge hassle. I couldn’t care less about concrete foundations or not.

And here I am. After just one year, one awesome year, I have moved to the complete opposite side of the city, gotten pretty comfortable but now we’re bidding 2.2 million swedish crowns on a house. I have no idea how to maintain a house, all the stuff you need to do with regular intervalls. I’m counting on losing ALOT! of sleep over mortgage rates and leaky roof than I ever did about things I used to lose sleep over…

Damn… I think I just may be growing up now…

GOD DAMNIT!!

Happy Birthday To Us!

If you’ve done your math you might now what today is?…

No? Well no surprise really. But it is one year ago today that me and the love of my life, Helena, met for the first time on a weird walkathon date in Stockholm, the date that ended with me making the wrong “kiss or hug?”-choice. But even with that little hick-up we ended up falling in love, and me moving in with her and now even looking at buying a house! Things are awesome between us!! One hickup or two but pretty much awesome!

I just love her! I love how she can talk in that cute little girlish way, how can be so adult and cold with the banking people, how she drives like a maniac, how she laughs at people messing up, love making love with her and love how she makes me feel! It’s awesome!!!

To celebrate it we’re going out to our favorite restaurant tonight and this weekend we’re going away to some mansion and staying the night without a care in the world!!

Life is good!!

Movies and Even More Movies

In the past few weeks me and my girlfriend have watched more movies than anyone should. But we really have nothing better to do in our spare time right now than watch a movie or two. And I’m not really complaining since I like movies 🙂

Finally saw “Mamma Mia!” (had to buy it on blueray just cause I can!), quite a funny and good movie for all generations basically. I was most interested to see how they incorporated “Does your mother know”. ‘Cause let’s phase it, had it been either of the male actors singing it to a young girl it wouldn’t work today.. most innovative use of a Abba song was “Lay All Your Love on me”, loved that one!

Biggest disappointment yet was Benjamin Button. Sorry but it felt like it tried to be Forrest Gump… but didn’t quite achieve that epic feel. Big disappointment there. Or maybe “Wanted” was the biggest disappointment? That’s not even worth words… or maybe X-Files was even worse?.. so many stupid movies made today…

“Expired” was a bit funny and cute but overall pretty boring. “Seven Pounds” was very boring but the last 10 minutes make up for the boring movie cause it’s so good ending I had to drop a little tear. “Grey Matter” was pretty slow but sweet, “Alien Raiders” was surprisingly good thriller/horror. Never been into horror movies but Helena is so I just adapt.

And countless comedies, “Accepted”, “My Best Friends Girl” but best one was “Step Brothers”, didn’t expect it to be _that_ funny! And ofcourse Kevin Smiths latest, “Zack and Miri Makes a Porno” which was funny, just not hilarious.

Can’t wait for the F1 season to start 🙂

How’s The New Year So Far?

How is your new year going? For me it’s “ok but could be better”, had a bit of a downer with my girlfriend last night but atleast we fell asleep holding eachother in the end. Other than that I’m happy to finally have my video system set up the way I want it to, complete with HTPC optically hooked up and all stuff like that, the way it was meant to be basically. So now we’re busy plowing through movies one after another. And then still busy redesigning NataliePortman.com. But atleast WoW isn’t taking that much of my time anymore 🙂

Busy Busy

Not sure I should be apologizing here for being so busy I haven’t had time to update it in weeks. So many things going on, from Warcraft to adapting to living with someone 24/7 to redesigning NataliePortman.com and ofcourse celebrating christmas. Again. And again. Cause me and Helena actually celebrated it thrice – once at her brothers place, once at my parents place and once at her parents place. Lots of good food and stuff that got me bloated. But I love it cause I still love christmas!! 🙂 And ofcourse I still love Helena 🙂

This Is Love

Got a new definition of love for you – my girlfriend serving me coffee, gingerbread and a whiskey while I’m having a blast with my friends in the World of Warcraft, even though she hates it when I’m playing… that is love … Damn I’m a lucky guy!

Back Into The Abyss

Yeap, I’m going back into the deep abyss of Warcraft again! Gonna try to level up asap and then chill as much as I can and my girlfriend will allow. Feels … pretty good and pretty bad… Good that the expansion is here, always fun with new stuff. Bad that my girlfriend will go around feeling ignored 🙁 Hopefully we’ll land somewhere in the middle.

End Of An Era

Last weekend was a bit of a bummer for a nostalgic person like me. I moved in with my girlfriend a few months back but now it was time to clear out my old apartment since it was just draining cash. So after my family helped me load everything into self storage I had some professional cleaners come in and clear it and now the contract has expired so after 9 1/2 years I no longer live there at all.
When I moved in there back in 1999 I was the chief of our little department at Min Dator. Since then I’ve changed employers a few times, seen the world, lived the bachelors life, did all my WoWing there, my home cinema system and generally had a very good time there. But now I gotta try to have even better times in our apartment in Barkarby which I still think is a bit small, but what tha hell, I get to share it with the woman I love and that is by far the most important thing.

Small Step For Mankind, Giant Leap For Me

This weekend I’m taking what is probably the greatest risk I’ve ever taken in my life! I’m giving up my apartment and really moving in with my girlfriend!!

The biggest gamble I’ve done so far was when I signed up for the project at the state department and travelling around the world. But in that case, had it not worked out I’d told my boss I don’t wanna do it and everyone would have been hugely dissappointed but that’d be it. Now, if it doesn’t work out I’ve lost the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me and I’ll have no place to live!!

Ofcourse I am totally comfortable and sure that we won’t split up, but there’s only so much I can control. I can’t control that she won’t wake up one morning and realise what a boring person I can be sometimes and that she’s the one with the balls in this relationship, I don’t know.

Here’s hoping I’ll never find out!!